“I can really get a sense of the history and the richness of the culture and the different people,” McDonald said. “It was neat the way it tied to history and the culture through the arts. The dance [and] the costumes were just visually stunning. I was really captivated by the colors and the various ensembles, but they all had a very common thread.”
That common thread he was referring to was “the storyline, the Creator and the heavens, and the connection that the dances had to the culture.”
“As the song said, that tradition is good. And staying with the traditional sense of values and cultural norms that we have brings people together. And in a way, that is difficult to maintain these days because of the separation that this pandemic is creating, and any opportunity for people to be brought back together culturally I think is very important.”
“The energy, I could feel it inside. Through the visual and hearing the music was very stunning in all respects—visually, emotionally. I loved every second of it,” McDonald said. “It was a wonderful experience all around. I was not sure what to expect because people have spoken so highly of it, and I was not disappointed in the slightest. It’s truly a wonderful show.”
“I personally don’t know a lot about Chinese history and culture,” Aldous said. “And I think it’s great to have the opportunity to learn a little bit about that and to observe it. And I think it’s a great mission to make sure that it’s preserved.”
“With the current government, I think that it may be difficult to preserve those traditions, especially as rising generations come up,” Aldous said. “So it feels like someone would need to do that to make sure that those long years in history would be preserved.”