Contribution of Divine Performing Arts Troupe to Chinese Culture
By Li Jiaxiang
Epoch Times Taiwan Staff
Apr 27, 2007
Jai Ben-Ray, Dean of the Social Science College at Nanhua University in Jiayi County, Taiwan. (Liu Wenge/The Epoch Times)
What inner meanings has the U.S. Divine Performing Arts Troupe shared with the public through its stage shows?
Through the Divine Arts Performing Troupe's fifteen performances across north, central and south Taiwan, audiences of all different backgrounds and careers have gained different understandings of traditional Chinese culture from this divine performance.
Jai Ben-Ray, Dean of the Social Science College at Nanhua University in Jiayi County, watched the last show on April 21. He felt that the Divine Performing Arts Troupe has made a great contribution to Chinese culture, as it had been absent from the world art stage for the past 100 years.
Restore the Chinese Culture
Jai Ben-Ray said, "For a long time, the Chinese had been highly influenced by the Western arts. Once art was mentioned, we would feel that art seems to be Mozart's music or Western ballet. Consequently, over the past hundred years, the Chinese have been very limited in their artistic expression. Subconsciously we did not believe the Chinese arts could be developed."
After watching the troupe's performance Jai said, "However, Chinese arts can be developed in many fields. Today, I saw that the stage settings, backdrops, background music, art expression, vocal singing, art design as well as the expression of the content can all be different from the Western world. It can all be new and innovative, but it can also return to the values of traditional Chinese culture."
Dean Jai has also felt a special interest towards the creative display of culture and the Chinese dances suggestive of conversational interplay. He said in an interview with The Epoch Times, "The content of the show we've seen today, is purely traditional Chinese culture, whether it is from Mongolia, Tibet, or Dunhuang (a small oasis town located in the desert of northwestern China, and a famous site of the largest complex of ancient Chinese art). However, the show is still very innovative in form and has made some attempts of breaking through. Since the performers are mostly from North America Chinese, this is a dialogue between cultures and people with the traditional Chinese culture as the focus and the background. It has achieved great success in showing one's own perspective in the pursuit of the meaning of life, culture and tradition."
Overcoming the Difficulty of Expressing Chinese culture and Beliefs on Stage
Dean Jai said, "As Chinese beliefs are different from those in the West, they are not as easily expressed on stage as they might be in the Western arts". However, Jai believes that the Divine Performing Arts Troupe has achieved that. He said, "I've noticed through their stage decorations and backdrops that the show does not have the overpowering feeling of alone and lonely emphasized in Western art, but rather, it allows us to feel as if the events of our lives have brought people closer together and developed a group relationship, combining culture, tradition, history, geography and so on, together with rich content onto a small stage. As such, it has an effect of conversational interplay."
This is the Power of Faith
Dean Jai, who has been teaching in the Jiayi area for over ten years, witnessed the lively audience in the show. He pointed out that, "Jiayi is not a rich cultural area. This show place, Chung Cheng University's auditorium is the largest in Jiayi with over 2000 seats. In Jiayi's other theaters there are only about 800 seats. Normally one-third of the seats were only occupied in those theaters when I attended shows.
"Today so many people showed up partly from its reputation of excellent performance and partly because of their belief along with their imagination of the culture. The show can be descried as a dialogue between belief and cultural visualization, which are combined by the sense of traditional divinity. It embodies the traditional cultural values in the performing arts." Dean Jai came to a very simple conclusion, "This is the power of faith".
