(Clearwisdom.net) The Divine Performing Arts Touring Company staged its first show at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota, Florida, at 8:00 p.m. on December 22, 2008. The curtain fell to rousing cheers and applause from an enthusiastic and appreciative audience.

Jazz pianist Bert and his wife enjoyed the show

Eighty-year-old Bert is a jazz pianist. He started playing piano at the age of 13. He attended the show with his wife, and both of them thought it was remarkable. Bert said he thought the music was fantastic, especially in how it matched the stories of the dances and reflected the dancers' different emotions.

He continued to say that he enjoyed the show very much and that he and his wife had never seen anything quite like it before. They liked the colors and the costumes in particular, and were impressed by how the many performers danced in unison, something that requires a lot of preparation. He thought the dances were unusual and singled out "Drummers of Tang Court" as "amazing."

Bert's wife said that she thought every program was beautiful and the dances and singing were excellent. "The stories portrayed in the dances and the backdrops were very beautiful. It was really a visual treat and also a good opportunity to see performances from a different culture."

"All that DPA conveys is noble and sacred"

John Teryek is retired from the military and volunteers his time to help organize the archives of the Sarasota Ballet. His first impressions of the DPA show were of "Diversity of movements, gestures, postures, and also the spirituality that seems to run through all of what they are doing." He said that he was deeply impressed by the flowers and fans in "Welcoming Spring."

Mr. Teryek explained, "I am sitting up front, and I am trying to scan for everything and still focus on the hand gestures and the movements of the arms, and at the same time, the different postures and the movements of the feet, and the facial expressions, and the movements of the head."

"Tomorrow I will be sitting in the back. I find I can see different things in the back than up close. When I sit in the back, I will be able to see the magic of the lighting, and I will also see the larger ensemble." He added, "I am surprised. Most of these performers are ethnic Chinese but American-Chinese, and they are trying to recreate Chinese culture from the past. I was wondering if this was an international group I was watching, given the character and the consciousness and the sophistication I was seeing. When I discovered that they were American-Chinese, well, that explains it." When told that the dancers had first to learn traditional Chinese culture to spread it to the world, Mr. Teryek responded, "They are doing it very well."

The DPA touring company performed again in Sarasota, on Tuesday, December 23, before traveling on to Jacksonville. For more information, see Divineperformingarts.org.