Jan 14, 2008

OTTAWA--Divine Performing Arts' Chinese New Year Spectacular made the Canadian debut of its 2008 world tour in Ottawa Sunday night.

Cyril Dabydeen, an award-winning professor of English at the University of Ottawa, gave enthusiastic reviews of the show last year and again enjoyed the show "tremendously" this year.

"The sense of divinity, spirituality, and good values--those things for me were very transcendental, very inspirational," he said after seeing the show on Sunday evening at Ottawa's National Arts Centre.

A prolific poet and writer whose work has been published in Canada and other countries, Dabydeen has written over 15 books, including novels and collections of poetry and short stories. He has juried twice for the Canadian Governor General's award for books of poetry and served as Poet Laureate of Ottawa.

Dabydeen noted that when the sopranos were singing and he looked at the lyrics on the screen, "It was so marvelous; it transported me back in time, in a sense of a beautiful, wonderful, quintessential Chinese culture."

The production is a world-class showcase of Chinese classical and ethnic dance, music, and song. It combines Chinese and Western music and instruments and blends ancient performance techniques with state-of-the-art technology in the form of dramatic digital backdrops and animation.

"The modern technology and classical techniques, I think they blended wonderfully . . . beautifully," said Dabydeen. "The Chinese and Western musical instruments, classical and modern Chinese and Western elements, past and present, all blended in wonderful symbiosis."

Dabydeen commented on the ancient Chinese emphasis on moral qualities and spiritual search for truth portrayed in the programs in the Spectacular .

"Moral qualities are very important, especially when there seems to be moral conflict and confusion because of the influence of popular culture stemming from the mass media. This show emphasizes the importance of time-worn cultural and moral values and traditions -- which we should all reflect on seriously in our quickly changing world."

Noting that the show made him "think of the joy of culture," Daberdeen added that the "very high standard" of the show "will help everyone focus on the role cultures play in advancing the quality of life of all our citizens."

Dabydeen was co-winner of the top Guyana Prize for Fiction in 2007 for his novel "Drums of My Flesh." The novel was also nominated for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award last year and was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Awards in 2006.

He has also been a long-time human rights and race relations activist and is a trained educator who has taught at the junior school, college, and university levels for 20 years.

"I've worked in multiculturalism for 15 years," said Dabydeen. "This high quality of choreography, dance, singing, the sopranos, drumming, the orchestra -- it's an extraordinarily high quality . . . It enhances all of us."

Dabydeen commended the Chinese community for its "tremendous contribution" that has made Ottawa a "wonderfully enriched city."

"Very often we think of only certain people, [for example] European Canadians, who can produce works of high, great artistic aesthetic quality, but there you have this event tonight, wonderfully produced and performed."

Divine Performing Arts, the performing company that put together the show, describes the Spectacular as a showcase of "authentic traditional Chinese culture with pure compassion and pure beauty, without any elements of communist party culture."

Dabydeen noted the importance of maintaining the traditional sense of the culture. This is because a society should evolve naturally and organically, he said. "That's the key word--'organic evolution of society and culture.'"

"Political influence tends to be manufactured influence. It's too contrived, and sometimes they do not lead to our self-fulfillment."

"What attracted me the most, as last year too, was the sense of history, the wonderful traditions, and how society evolves, because all societies tend to change. Beyond that, underneath it all is a sense of our higher self, moral values, and spiritual values."

After a second show in Ottawa on Monday, the Chinese New Year Spectacular will move on to Montreal and Toronto, then continue its worldwide tour of more than 60 cities on five continents.

Source: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-1-14/64016.html