New Tang Dynasty TV's Chinese New Year Global Gala: bringing a multicultural vision together through a Chinese lens for overseas Chinese

The lights dimmed and the music rose, dancers come onto the stage.  I am amazed to see how many of the dancers in Chinese costumes have caucasian faces...  New Tang Dynasty TV Gala came to Vancouver to entertain in celebration of Chinese New Year.  Much of the show featured an emphasis on multiculturalism and a compassionate spirituality, as well as both traditional Chinese culture.  There were traditional dances and songs, and artistic dance recreations of famous Chinese stories such as heroine Mu-lan, Quan Yin, and dragons.  There was flamenco dancing, Romanian folk melodies, and Korean triple drum dance.  My thoughts were that we truly have reached a multicultural apex, when we have people of different ethnic backgrounds performing in all aspects of a major ethnic festival celebration.

Each audience member was handed a glossy 32 page program which listed the different performances, artist bios as well as ad and greetings from sponsors.  This was important because the introduction tells about New Tang Dynasty TV's mission that includes:

And so the show is both a showcase of a Chinese interpretation of multiculturalism and also a message of compassion and spirituality, underlined by Buddhist and Confucian sensibilities.  This would not be unlike any Western society celebration of Christmas with Christian storytelling about the birth of Jesus, or how it is important to give gifts and celebrate peace at Christmastime.  Chinese New Year is the largest holiday celebration of the year - in fact it is the "Christmas" of the Asian world.

The MC's featured a handsome caucasian male dressed in a tuxedo, named Jared, and a pretty Chinese female dressed in a cheong-sam (long dress), named Simone.  He spoke English and she spoke Mandarin Chinese.  The back and forth dialogue was lively and informative, if a little forced and clearly scripted.  He admitted he didn't know much Chinese language, and the funniest moment of the show, was when he tried to sing a "Chinese Opera" song in English to her.... painfully bad funny.

Their inbetween set banter kept things light, and the opening set featured the Ying Tang Lion and Dragon Troupe & Dance Troupe.  It was a story set in China's mythical past displaying the occasion of the lantern festival when the King of the Heavens emerge from the lanterns to reveal to the audience the secrets of retuning to one's true self.  Some of the onlookers are permitted to enter the lantern and make the ascension to the heavens.  Sometimes I forget how much Chinese mythology is about spiritually ascended beings who became gods through personal enlightenment.  I remember taking a university class on mythology, where we discovered that while most cultures have gods that created humans, Chinese culture is so ancient, that it is the humans who ascend and become the gods.

And so the evening passed as musical segments such as Lache Cercel and the Cercel Ensemble performed the Romanian Rhapsody on violin, double bass, and two guitars - alternated with a traditional "Fairies' Flutes" Chinese dance.  An Erhu (2 string chinese violin) performance by Xiaochun Qi, alternates with the "Nine Swords" dance by the New Tang Dyanasty Performing Arts Center, where good dancers fight the evil dancers, in a representation of "followers of truth" defeat the "dragon of menace" to restore harmony in the world.

If this sounds like new age story-telling, it probably is.  But the stories are universal and the translation from the Chinese is literal.  What made this production interesting was the use of technology.  The large projection screen was used instead of painted backdrops.  It made for very effective scene changes, as forests, mountains, villages, all popped up.  Even a dragon flew across the stage at one point. 

Over the past two years I have been attending more Chinese event shows such as Terracotta Warriors, Senses and Chung Yi: The Legend of Kung Fu.  In each case, my lack of Chinese language and cultural history prevented me from knowing the fuller context and deeper meanings of the stories and performances.  While the dancing and martial arts of the New Tang Dynasty gala is not as dramatic as the previous mentioned productions, it is still well done and relevant for its purpose, which is to paint a celebration of Chinese culture.  Western audiences will learn more about Chinese culture and history and Chinese language audiences will learn more about Western cultural traditions. 

But the "multicultural" segments seem to me to be no more than exotic appeal.  Taken out of context and plunked into the middle of a production full of Chinese myth and legend, does not help me understand Romanian music, Korean dancing or Spanish flamenco music performed by Karen Pitkethly (which I loved!) - other than it is pretty and it sounds nice.  But this is a beginning step for many Overseas Chinese who have now moved to North America and are not readily exposed to the roots of Western cultural traditions.  This is the audience of New Tang Dynasty TV, and it is important to recognize that they are trying to do something that hasn't been done on this large a scale before.  They are trying to promote Chinese cultural values of compassion and goodness within the context of a Western environment.

My own experience is that of a 5th generational Canadian of Chinese descent who has experienced the rise of a Canadian made Chinese identity, born from our experiences of overcoming years of legislated racism in "Gum San" - the gold mountain of North America.  I created Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner events to reflect and promote home grown Asian-Canadian culture within the context of cross-cultural intersections between Scottish-Canadians and Chinese-Canadians.  Both have their place, and I am thankful for such productions as New Tang Dynasty's Chinese Global New Year, for helping me to experience more of the traditional Chinese culture and performances that were familiar to my ancestors who came to Canada when China was still the imperial Ching Dynasty of the late 1800's.

The New Tang Dynasty TV Chinese New Year Global Gala is a good event for families to see the diversity of Chinese cultural traditions and stories plus some additional multicultural performances too, but at 3 hours with an intermission, you could hear some of the kids getting restless, even though the dragon was scary too!  At the end of the evening, I was interviewed by a reporter from Epoch Times, who asked me if I thought there were enough opportunities to see Chinese culture in Vancouver, a dynamic multicultural centre?  I replied that there are many ways to see Chinese cultural performances in Vancouver, such as Lily King's annual spring celebration or at many of the cultural festivals such as Asian Heritage Month or the Dragon Boat festivals.  More Chinese event producers are putting on shows for the ever growing Chinese language population of Vancouver.  But while we can see many local productions or amateur school productions, we are now getting to see larger high quality productions such as Dennis Law's shows at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts, and many touring productions too.  This is the leading edge of Chinese cultural shows, and I expect to see more in the future.

Below are links and information to :

For more info on the global gala. NTDTV's 2006 Chinese New Gala :
http://gala.ntdtv.com/2006/en/

See highlights from the show:
http://gala.ntdtv.com/2006/en/hi/

Review of the Boston show by OperaOnLine
 http://www.operaonline.us/mythslegends_001.htm.