In Vancouver, a debate over how art should be reviewed is growing. On one side is Dr. Dennis Law, one of the owners of the Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts and the writer/producer and director of Terracotta Warriors, the second in a development of show spectacles he calls "Action-Musicals." On the other side are Vancouver’s art and culture critics of the Vancouver Sun, West Ender, Globe & Mail and Georgia Straight. In the middle are Vancouver’s audiences, many whom are enjoying "Terracotta Warriors" despite what the reviewers are writing.

All this is taking place during Asian Heritage Month, throughout May, recognized across Canada with major events and festivals going on across the country. From Montreal to Calgary, from Ottawa to Victoria, Asian Canadians from multi-generation descendents to new immigrants are staging productions to affirm their identities as Asian Canadians, both in traditional arts rooted in Asia, and also in contemporary arts that are strongly Canadian.

"East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet", wrote Rudyard Kipling during the hey day of the once mighty British Empire. Colonial rule in India, Hong Kong, parts of Africa, Central America, the Caribbean as well as North America, imposed upon resident cultures its’ own brand of colonial justice and values, long before the terms of "cultural relativism" and "multiculturalism" were invented.

And so it would seem to me, that when a new arts impresario from Denver Colorado steps into our Western frontier town and challenges the status quo of arts and culture in Vancouver, all the other local guns have to challenge the newcomer. Indeed, the wagons are being circled and the posse is being rounded up looking for a lynching.

Terracotta Warriors is neither traditional Chinese Opera nor dance, neither is it a traditional Broadway Musical. Rather it is an "Action-Musical," a new artform that blends traditional Chinese Arts with modern technology. This could be similarly compared to how Cirque du Soleil has "borrowed" many traditional art forms from around the world such as Chinese acrobats and Polynesian fire dancing combining them with lavish costumes and music to reinvent the Circus in the late 20^th Century.

Law is simply doing the same, merging the old with the new, to create a new way of presenting the once familiar. Isn’t this what Art is supposed to do? Show us new ways of seeing? Seeing the objects around us with fresh eyes, the way Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso and Igor Stravinsky did – much to the dismay and public outcries of a world not ready for Modernism. But is the world ready for Chinese Dance and Opera to be reinvented for the 21^st Century? If not by Dennis Law, then by whom? And if not in Vancouver or Canada, then where?

Law claims that the reviewers are unfairly biased towards his shows and instead of writing good journalistic art critiques, they are writing personal attacks against him. The critics are writing that Law doesn’t make his show accessible enough for Western audiences and that the plot is convoluted and hard to understand.

Leanne Campbell (Westender) opens her review by comparing the music and smoke effects to a Heavy Metal concert. What really happens is that a Chinese percussion player plays on a large array of Chinese drums and large bells. One must wonder if Ms. Campbell is ignorant of Chinese music and art or mistook the theatrical smoke for her hard rock youth. Such a statement comparing Chinese music to Heavy Metal music smacks of cultural ignorance similar to bebop jazz music being derogatorily called "Chinese Music."

Understanding and appreciating cultural diversity is what Asian Heritage Month is all about. Being open to new or different forms of art is important to our culture, otherwise it stagnates. Ms. Campbell and other reviewers are all Western Caucasians, presumably writing for a White audience with a Western Caucasian perspective. But isn’t Vancouver supposed to be the city of great diversity and multiculturalism and tolerance for other cultures? Perhaps not in the arts world. or maybe just amongst some specific critics.

Max Wyman, Vancouver dance critic emeritus, writes in his new book "The Defiant Imagination," that Canadian culture must embrace cultural diversity. "Canada is an experiment in constant renewal, a welcoming society built in a spirit of democratic pluralism. We are finding that the experience and knowledge of a multicultural population with roots in many countries and societies is one of our great strengths. From that diversity flow insight, creativity, wisdom. Confidence in our culture and belief in its living, ceaselessly changing diversity gives us a communal ability to counter xenophobia and cultural paranoia."

Wyman paints an artistic back drop of a Canada moving beyond multiculturalism to become a truly global leader of culture, where Vancouver’s artists are looked upon as leaders in their fields. Artists such as Kokoro Dance, Battery Opera and Boca del Lupo all receive worldwide recognition for their cultural fusion led by teams of inter-racial marriages and partnerships. On the global scene it is exotic, in Vancouver, inter-racial and inter-cultural is seen as the norm.

And yet the Vancouver media seems to prefer criticizing Law on a homogenous set of values based on Western morals and values as opposed to trying to understand the new cultural ideas he is presenting to us. Perhaps this is a diversion for what they don’t understand about Chinese culture and art.

Witness comments by Alexandra Gill, (Globe & Mail), who writes that Terracotta Warriors is "gorgeous but painfully amateurish" and wonders if Law is "an artistic visionary who truly believes there is a Broadway-bound future in his action-musicals? Or is he just a wannabe director with lots of money and a big theatre to play in?"

Afterall, trying to understand Chinese culture is a tremendous task 4000 years of culture with a country 5 times the size of Europe and as twice as many cultural subgroups if not more – all rolled up into a few cliches and stereotypes for easy Western digestion. Small wonder that after a few hours Westerners minds are hungry again – they didn’t digest enough in the first place.

Being an impresario is hard work. Law denies he is one, but over the past three years, he has brought us "Heaven & Earth" his first action-musical, plus the Denver Ballet’s production of "Dracula" and "Eagle and Dragon", a musical concert featuring Chinese and American classical singers. Vancouver’s own local impresarios have failed and succeeded in our market. David Y.H. Louie, despite his financial failings, is still lauded as a visionary to bring exciting dance companies to Vancouver. And Vancouver Recital Society’s Leila Getz has succeeded where people told her recitals weren’t viable. Getz herself has said that it is important to maintain an artistic vision and to bring artists whom she feels are important and not necessarily just what the audience thinks they want to see.

But where are all the Asian voices in this debate. Well which Asians do you mean? Vancouver’s Asian population is as diverse as the many countries and generations they arrived from. And this may simply be the problem. Vancouver and it’s artistic community still doesn’t understand its’ Asian audience.

My own Asian heritage is descended from the Chinese pioneers who arrived in the late 19^th Century. Our families are so integrated into Canadian culture, we are considered to be the "invisible visible minorities." Chinese culture and history is largely foreign to me, so I welcomed the experience that Terracotta Warriors has provided for me to learn about Chinese art and culture and especially one of history’s greatest leaders and visionaries. Emperor Qin Shihuang accomplished not only the unification of China, but also its language and monetary system, and is considered only to be have Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar as historical equals. Even Ramses, Genghis Khan or Napoleon couldn’t maintain an empire as large or leave as lasting a legacy.

I took my Chinese Canadian parents and my White Canadian girlfriend to see Terracotta Warriors. All enjoyed it tremendously and nobody had a problem understanding the story lines. My girlfriend and I compared it to attending European opera or ballet, sung in foreign languages. We met people in the audience who planned to see it a second time, and heard about people who had seen the show three times already. Many audience members both Asian and Caucasian had their pictures taken with cast members in the lobby, smiles displaying the enjoyment of the occasion.

Two years ago, I sat at audience development round table discussions with the leading arts organizations of Vancouver. It was widely understood that the Vancouver’s large Asian population was an untapped market. But the talks were disproportionately represented by the faces around the table, as only 2 or 3 out of 50 people attending the meeting were Asian. And from the look and names of the people writing the reviews of Terracotta Warriors and Asian Heritage Month events, all the reviewers are white. No wonder the Vancouver media doesn’t understand the show or Vancouver’s Asian population.