'It puts you in another world.' (Dai Bing/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK--Concert cellist, Christine Walesvska was right at home at the Radio City Music Hall's matinee session of the Divine Performing Arts (DPA) Chinese New Year Splendor on Sunday Jan. 25.

"This is just spectacular as always. It's just incredible how creative and how each time they are doing new dances," she said. "I love it, just love it".

Ms. Walesvska has seen the Divine Performing Arts Chinese New Year shows for the last four years.

Last year, however, she was forced to miss it at this venue. A soloist since she was 18, Ms. Walesvska is world renowned and travels a lot to perform. Last year, for the first time, she was away for the Radio City season. While she still caught the show at the Beacon Theatre instead, it was good to be back at the famous theater.

"I mean, it's just phenomenal, it's just incredible. As always the dancing is exquisite and the beauty of everything and the backdrops. It's certainly the place to have it here, in the Radio City Music Hall, just incredible."

Ms. Walesvska said she was intrigued by the history of Chinese dance, noting its influence on modern acrobatics.

"I am very happy that the Master of Ceremonies told us that these phenomenal flips that they do ... you know, I thought that it was part of acrobatics, but he explained that it was from thousands of years ago, that it's the tradition that's been passed on, but to do that without even putting your hands on the floor, just flipping!"

The Divine Performing Arts' focus on traditional Chinese culture is, in fact, one of the main features Ms. Walesvska loves about the show.

"Yes, I have learned lots of new things. They are bringing back for the world to see the traditions of the ancient Chinese and I think that's what's so fantastic," she said. Adding that different traditional cultures around the world "have been burned out" over the years but she believed the DPA was invigorating a renaissance in the classical arts of ancient China.

"When you look at, for instance, the ancient Chinese materials, and I have some beautiful ancient robes myself, and then you see well, yes, this group is inspired by all of that beauty of yesteryear.

"Then you look at what mediocrity is considered to be modern art and you say, 'well my goodness' I mean thousands of years ago all of this beauty existed and where are we now?"

As a musician, Ms. Walesvska noted particularly the role music played and the musicians played in the performance, describing the erhu player as "just most exquisite."

"We, as interpreters, have the great joy of bringing to the audience from a different era something of great beauty that is rare to find today, and that's what I think everybody appreciates about this show," she said.

Ms. Walesvska looked around the foyer for the friends she had invited to see the show, noting with appreciation the three different companies now touring the world at the same time. "I am so happy ... It is just so magnificent," she said.

She tells her friends, "if you want to be uplifted, if you want to see something of sheer beauty, grace, magnificence," then this is the show to see. "It puts you in another world, and I think that that's also the great power of music because it has the capacity of lifting people's spirits and inspiring their souls, and that's what you have with this show."

She used the words "beauty, purity, sincerity, excellence," to sum up her feelings about the show, noting that "when you think of the amount of practise that it takes for this tremendous dancing together...and the things that you see, it's so fantastic."

She said the dancers were "very, very beautiful, extremely beautiful" and again reiterated how impressed she was with the new show. "I just cannot believe how they have different costumes each year, different dances, the music is gorgeous and it was just marvellous. I loved every minute of it," she said.

Source: http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/content/view/10891/