Epoch Times Staff January 25, 2009

A full-house at the Divine Performing Arts show at the State Theatre on Chinese New Year's Eve (Edward Dai/The Epoch Times)

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.--Despite temperatures below 20 degrees, New Brunswick's State Theatre was filled to capacity on the eve of the Chinese New Year celebration marking the Year of the Ox.

A capacity crowd of 1,800 applauded, laughed, and cried in response to the debut performance of the Divine Performing Arts' Chinese New Year Spectacular that showcased 5,000 years of Chinese culture.

Graphic design artist Mr. Dunst said he thoroughly enjoyed the show.

"It's so different from American-type dancing. I liked the drumming, just everything, the choreography...it was just very new, definitely different, and I liked the way everything told a story. That to me was the most significant part."

Divine Performing Arts takes its inspiration from 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. Many of its dances are based on the country's amazing wealth of myths, legends and historical stories.

Being Jewish, Mr. Dunst said he had no problem relating to the spiritual elements in the sketches and songs.

"You hear it in Jewish songs--there's a lot of spirituality in those, so you can definitely tell. Especially the way they were performed, you could tell there was a lot of meaning involved."

The guiding mission of the Divine Performing Arts is to rediscover and renew humanity's true, rightful heritage. The company creates and performs works that center upon the true, divinely bestowed culture of humankind and seeks to provide an experience of consummate beauty and goodness.

"It's something that's new to me. Apart from learning about martial arts and the different animals [of the Chinese calendar] it has gotten me more interested and I want to learn more about it. Something that has lasted for this long is definitely worthwhile, a good thing to learn about."

State-of-the-art animated and static backdrops enrich a repertoire of ancient and modern themes played out in each performance: majestic palaces, sprawling Mongolian plains, rustic temples, cascading clouds, and more.

"It was very interesting how they incorporated the backdrops into the dance--very neat and very modern."

The Divine Performing Arts Orchestra begins with a classical Western orchestra as its foundation and augments this with traditional Chinese instruments, enabling its compositions to at once mine the potential of Western orchestral music and yet be rich in Chinese qualities.

"It worked well with the dancing, and even the singing," Mr. Dunst said of the orchestra.

"It was definitely a nice show. I enjoyed it."

Source http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/content/view/10894/