INDIANAPOLIS—Divine Performing Arts (DPA) delighted the audience at the Murat Theatre in Indianapolis on Saturday, Jan. 31, with its unique presentation of Chinese traditional culture.
Ms. Hanson, executive vice president of a major Midwestern university, was highly impressed with DPA’s visual feast of classical Chinese dance and Chinese ethnic and folk dance performed to original music.
“It was marvelous,” she said. “It was sublime artistry. Spectacular—just marvelous in every respect.”
Ms. Hanson said she had seen the show before but not in its entirety. “The historical sweep, the beauty of every section of it—it was just inspiring.”
The New York-based DPA is composed of a unique group of leading artists who share in a vision of reviving Chinese traditional culture which was all but destroyed after the advent of communism to China.
“One of the things that struck me was the kind of melding of the arts into the performance and the window into culture, as well as the really superb artistry of every one of the performers, singers, and dancers, each one individually. Together it was breathtaking,” Ms. Hanson said.
When asked what she thought about the message the show imparted, she said, “It was wonderful. The sort of emphasis on compassion is something we can all learn a lesson from.”
Ms. Hanson added that she thought the show “was a marvelous window into all sorts of elements of Chinese arts and culture. My home discipline is philosophy, so I loved hearing about Confucius too—the same message of Socrates, about knowing what you don’t know.”
Commenting on other aspects of the show, Ms. Hanson said that the projected backdrops “were quite intriguing. I don’t know enough technologically to know how that’s produced, but it was an interesting way of conveying various elements of the narrative.”
DPA makes use of an innovative digital backdrop that provides an animated setting to frame each dance. In some of the pieces, the scenes on the backdrop interact with the dances on stage.
The show also features accomplished solo singers and musicians as well as a live orchestra that combines Chinese and Western music and instruments
“The music was wonderful too in each of the episodes of the singing and dancing. There was humor in the introduction of the orchestra. I think we all learned something and had a great experience,” Ms. Hanson said.
She described the piece, Mulan Joins the Battle as “terrific.” A legend in Chinese history, Mulan joined the army disguised as a man in her ailing father’s place.
Ms. Hanson concluded by saying that the show “taught all of us a lot about the history of Chinese culture …. Bringing things from the various provinces was a wonderful element of the show too. It was terrific.”
Divinity: A word not often used to describe fashion. Yet when the clothing in question has the profound background of Han Couture, its the only word that will do.
The Han Chinese people have a saying that their culture is passed down from the heavens. China itself can be referred to as Shenzhou or the Divine Land. But can such deep spirituality really be seen in the very clothes that people wore during the Sui and Tang Dynasties and in these new creations theyve inspired?
[Lili Zhou, Competition Judge]:
We want to bring all these traditional things back. We just want to show the inner beauty and that is the very big message we want to send out.”
[Marie Copps, Fashion Designer]:
“I think we have to do that as a society as the whole world has to come back to more spirituality and deeper meaning than just money and material world”
[Maimouna Ngom, Recipient Honorable Mention]:
“That is what I like about this competition, because I read that the chinese culture was given by gods that is what they believe. So I said to myself when I design it has to be divine.”
The Tang Dynastys splendid painters and sculptors would lead devout lifestyles, meditate, and look to the heavens for inspiration in creating their artworks. It was often to these masterpieces that the clothing designers of those days would turn to find their models.
Whether casual or formal, the outfits themselves were created to reflect the mood and behavior of tranquil beings, in celestial realms.
At this weekends first annual Han Couture Global Design Competition, designers, models, and spectators shared what was for many a first-time experience: A fashion show where the physical beauty on display was matched equally, even exceeded, by spiritual beauty.
GOLD MEDAL WINNER: “Moments” by Zhaoqing Wang won the gold medal for the formal wear
NEW YORK—Silk painted with lotuses, long trailing sashes, and royal brocade were some of the fine details on display at the first Global Han Couture Design Competition held at Manhattan’s Prince George Ballroom on Sunday, Oct. 18.
The competition was part of a series of competitions held by New Tang Dynasty Television this year, including piano, violin, traditional Chinese dance, martial arts, and voice.
More even-paced than your average fashion show, several hours of eye-popping designs from over 50 contestants paraded down the catwalk. The designs ranged from familiar styles seen in traditional Chinese paintings—simple lines, broad panels and airy fabrics—to ones resembling those worn by characters in martial arts comic books.
The competition’s guidelines were to “borrow the patterns in clothing of the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties…to create contemporary garments,” leaving the door wide open for a variety of styles and inspirations. But because the Western-Eastern combinations tended not to work, judges reverted to authenticity as their main judging criteria.
“Our selection process is designed this way because we want to use this to help guide the development of Han fashion down the line,” said judge Amy Li, who is an award-winning fashion designer trained in China. “We will be holding this competition in the future, we would like to see, in Chinese culture we have 5,000 years of fashion so we feel it’s already very rich and there’s a lot to draw upon already and we wanted to see a little bit more of that. There were some other pieces that were not as Asian and we felt that, having incorporated the western elements, even though it was nice in some cases, that it somehow doesn’t match, so it detracted from the overall effect.”
Each contestant was allowed to submit several pieces in two categories: casual wear and formal wear. In addition to a trophy and certificates of awards, $10,000 cash prizes were rewarded to gold winners, $5,000 to silver winners, and $2,000 USD to bronze winners.
Liqing Chen from Taiwan, whose pieces featured scooping sleeves and shapes that virtually leaped out from a painting, won silver in the casual division.
“Ancient Chinese fashion was very elegant, simple yet bold,” Chen said. “Mine was not very fancy but you don’t need a lot with Han couture to make it beautiful.”
Amy Li commented on the pieces that won gold in the formal wear division. Its theme was “Moments.” “The evening wear gold winner, the theme was ‘moment’ and we felt that it captured a moment in time of traditional Chinese couture,” Li said. “It was again very beautiful and at the same time very authentic.”
Some members of the fashion industry were in the audience. Sandi Grant, a New York fashion show producer, found the show impressive.
“The different colors, I loved the colors, the sequins, the embroidery, done stitch by stitch, they’re geniuses,” she said.
Lavera Wright, a former model and fashion consultant, now trains young models and holds fashion shows for upcoming New York designers. “It’s different from regular fashion shows,” Wright said. “The models took the time to pause, they really wore those gowns – they didn’t just run across the stage. They were elegant and graceful. That’s the way I am and how I teach my girls.” …… (more details)
by Jennifer Wesnousky, Explore Dance, February 16, 2007-
China’s Tang Dynasty between 618 and 906 A.D., explains the program for the NEW TANG DYNASTY TELEVISION’S CHINESE NEW YEAR SPECTACULAR, “is often called the highest point in Chinese history. Morality and education were highly valued and society was in harmony with nature.” Formed and named for this period by Chinese people living in the United States, the goal of New Tang Dynasty Television is to utilize American free speech to educate other Chinese people about world affairs in an environment free of the historic Chinese government restrictions. Its CHINESE NEW YEAR SPECTACULAR, performed at Radio City Music Hall between February 14 and 17, 2006, paid additional tribute to the prosperous period, showcasing a mélange of traditional Chinese song and dance to the educational delight of folks from every ethnicity.
The SPECTACULAR was a spectacle from its very first moment. The curtains opened to a smoke-filled stage across which the scurrying dancers, dressed as angels, appeared to float. A screen in back of the swarm of performers projected what appeared to be genuine Chinese landscapes, which changed from scene to scene. Following the first piece and throughout the performance, a charming Chinese narrator and her male, American counterpart shed some bilingual light regarding many of the production’s depictions.
Representing different historical periods and traditions, the SPECTACULAR presented an array of diverse and delightful dances. The young performers in “Rainbows” burst in carrying mystery props that appeared like bouquets of flowers, releasing them to reveal beautiful, brightly colored garlands similar to those used in rhythmic gymnastics. With tiny steps and little body movement, the number’s focus was on musically moving the ribbons midair, sometimes creating creative shapes in the midst of spins or leaps. “Dai Ethnic Dance” featured tiny, beautiful young females whose slow motion, sensual movement and shimmying shoulders in front of a projection of a river and palm trees evoked a comparison with the Hawaiian hula. Another standout dance piece featured a barrage of male dancers in fur-lined headpieces, made to represent herders on the Mongolian plains. Their masculine dance was filled with flowing arms, jerky shoulder movements and Russian-esque toe-touches, cartwheels and airborne barrel turns.
Many of the SPECTACULAR’s dance numbers included eye-pleasing formations, flowing arms, small, scampering steps and serene, seemingly divinely inspired faces. The use of props additionally characterized several of the compositions. In addition to the “Rainbows” ribbons, the companies incorporated bright orange, parasol-shaped cloths twirling rapidly on their fingertips, flower-shaped candleholders held precariously like trays atop the dancers’ hands and, in “Victory Drums,” a plethora of drums and drumsticks meant, according to Chinese folklore to “ward off evil” as well as “bring in a happy and bright New Year.”
The show also incorporated a live orchestra as well as an assortment of vocal talent including piano-accompanied sopranos, a tenor and a contralto who displayed her incredible vocal range. While all of the performance’s vocal numbers were sung in their native dialects, their projected transcriptions and English subtitles across the performance backdrop revealed their themes, dealing often with historical movements and their devoted disciples.
Whether outfitting the singers or dancers, each and every SPECTACULAR costume was just that, incorporating a brightly colored, beautiful range of fabrics as well as intricate headpieces. Silks and chiffons abounded on outfits including dresses, skirts, pants and robes with sashes with extreme attention to detail on accessories from jeweled tiaras to flowers, bows and even butterflies.
For an hour and a half on February 16, 2007, various aspects of Chinese culture became accessible to such diverse audience members as Chinese and other Americans, including teachers and school children from a multitude of backgrounds who may otherwise never have been exposed. Through the meticulous portrayal of Chinese song, dance and instrumentation by a team of over two-hundred talented performers, the NEW TANG DYNASTY TELEVISION’s CHINESE NEW YEAR SPECTACULAR left its audience with the tranquil sensation of having witnessed something both enlightening and resplendent.
By Georgina Hubbard, http://www.articledashboard.com -
The dazzling costumes in NTDTV’s Chinese New Year Spectacular are as much a part of each dance as the dance movements themselves. They are, in many ways, the palette on which the dance is performed. Clothes, hair, colors—this is what transports us to the Divine Land of ancient China.
The Spectacular’s wardrobe designers put great effort into creating just the right effect. A costume starts with a concept of the dance. The dance may have a powerful story or be found in a specific dynasty. Designers pore over paintings, frescoes and even statues to find the right look. Accessories then come into the design—hair, shoes, hats, belts. Next come sketches. Designers must consider not only how an outfit looks but also its flexibility for dance movements and whether it is durable enough to withstand over eighty performances.
Then the sketch goes to the sewing workshop. Here garment makers select just the right fabric, make the pattern and produce a sample. If it’s not just right, the whole process starts over. If the sample is approved, the task of making the clothes begins. Multiply this countless times. A single dance in this year’s Spectacular, the dance drama of General Yue Fei, required more than 100 costumes and accessories.
For Amy Lee, the principal designer in New York, this effort is well worth it. “When I came to the United States, I saw it was very difficult to find any expression of traditional Chinese culture. Through this show I see the hope of being able to preserve my culture for the benefit of my daughter and the next generation.”
Ms. Lee has worked in the fashion industry for more than twenty years. She was a professor of fashion design and fashion history in China. Although her costumes take inspiration from different dynasties and ethnic regions, her favorite dynasty is the Tang. She says the Tang Dynasty reflects the zenith of Chinese culture—artistically, economically and politically. During this time China was very open-minded. Prosperous and peaceful, the Tang Dynasty drew on influences from India, the Middle East and Europe.
According to Ms. Lee, all this is reflected in the clothes. “The clothes were rich and confident. They were uplifting,” she said. “Women wore large, open sleeves, sometimes up to two and a half feet wide. They wore see-through materials and gowns with high waists that were decorated with large, open flowers.”
Each dynasty had its own characteristics that were likewise reflected in the clothes. In general, Ms. Lee says everything can be found in the clothes—even the ancient people’s morals and values. “Clothing isn’t just a way to cover the body. It also reflects a person’s thoughts, culture and respect for the gods.”
Ms. Lee and her team use costume design to make ancient Chinese culture come alive today, to help the audience understand that traditional Chinese culture has much it can teach us today. Ms. Lee knows that through her efforts with NTDTV, these positive aspects of ancient China will not be forgotten.
Georgina Hubbard makes costumes from different historic periods by hand, and especially loves the fashion designs from China’s Tang Dynasty era.
Following photos are of 2006 Holiday Wonder Show in The Beacon Theater, New York City, which was happened during Christmase time from Dec. 19 to 24, 2006, hosted by NTDTV.
After the Holiday Wonder Show, the 3-month-long 2007 Chinese New Year Spectacular global tour show, which is also hosted by NTDTV, will begin to perform first in Vancouver, Canada, in Queen Elizabeth Theatre, on Jan. 3, 2007, and then go to other 29 cities around the world.
(All above photos are from Chinese news website epochtimes’ webpage here)
Chinese culture created a close and binding relationship between color and ceramics, murals, paintings, and poetry…even city planning. After the Ming Dynasty, only the Emperor’s relatives could have homes with red walls and yellow roof tiles. His subjects lived in houses with blue bricks and roof tiles. However, carved beams and columns used rich hues. Many buildings used black tiles and white walls.
In the Dun Huang Caves, dating back 1500 years, there are more than 10,000 mural fragments of various dynasties. Each dynasty used different color combinations. Murals of the Northern Wei Dynasty incorporated red and brown, supplemented by blue and black. Tang Dynasty murals featured yellow. Song Dynasty murals were dominated by blue and green.
Highly-skilled Chinese paintings express the artist’s idea through the ink’s thickness and thinness. The practice is described as “ink holds five colors” and “shinning brilliantly without the usage of bright colors.” “Ink holds five colors” refers to five ink shades—charred, thick, ash, thin and clear. In a painter’s eye, the color of water is clearly different in each season. In “Lin Quan Gao Zhi” (A Book about Paintings), Guo Xi wrote, “The color of water is green in spring, bluish green in summer, aqua in autumn, and black in winter.”
As recorded in “Selections of Famous Paintings of the Tang Dynasty”, Emperor Xuan Zong praised Li Si Xun’s landscape paintings with their strong green and blue hues as “the best landscape paintings in the nation.” The ancient Chinese people were good at extracting colors from minerals and plants. This type of painting is often outlined with brilliant paints extracted from various minerals such as Shi Qing (azurite), Shi Lu (mineral green), Shi Huang (mineral yellow), Zhu Sha (cinnabar), Yan Zhi (cochineal), Qian Fen (lead powder), and Ni Jin (golden paint). With these advances in painting, the result became bright and rich.
Chinese poems and paintings share the same origin. The relationship is described as “a painting recites a poem and a poem draws a painting.” Poets could expertly describe color and poems often alluded to vibrant colors. Poet Cui Hu created wonderfully colorful scenes as shown in two lines from his poem, “Ti Du Cheng Nan Zhuang (“For the Southern Village in the Capital”). These lines express the beauty of colors for people to ponder for thousands of years: Last year inside this court, peach flowers reflect each other in red.
Poet Bai Juyi wrote in “Verse on River Mu,”
Paving in water is a streak of the setting sun, turning red is the rustling river
A“silk radical” character attached to another Chinese character can describe different shades of the color of silk. According to “Shuo Wen Jie Zi” (Explaining Characters and Expressions), 24 characters describe colors of silk fabrics including red, green, purple, deep red (crimson), bright red, dark red (dark purple), light blue, orange red, white, and so on. From this, we can surmise the variety and richness of silk fabrics from the silk manufacturing industry in ancient China. During the Warring States Period, lacquerware decoration reached a highly skilled level. The state of Qi was especially well-known for its brightly colored silk products. Many of the silk goods unearthed from ancient tombs have maintained their original colors of brown, red, black, purple, and yellow.
Chinese pottery and lacquerware uses rich color even more extensively. The formulation of richly colored glazes infuses these pieces with a brilliant and lustrous appearance. From the renowned tri-colored glazed pottery of the Tang Dynasty (Tang San Cai) to five-colored glazed pottery, from the celadonware to white glazedware, from white and blue porcelain to ceramics with lustrous glazes, color plays a key role in the creation of pottery. Ancient Chinese pottery-making reached its zenith in colored and black pieces. Chinese lacquerware had exquisite patterns and dazzling color.
Ancient Chinese people understood that color feeds the spirit and expresses the depth of human experience. The 2007 Chinese New Year Spectacular celebrates color in all it intensity and richness through lighting, costumes and scenery and harkens back to the traditional meanings of color.
Celebrate color! Celebrate a spectacular Chinese New Year!
- For the Celebration in Vancouver, Canada, please check out this post:
Each dynasty in China’s long history gave its own significance to various colors. In every dynasty, the clothing for each official rank had their own color.
To support the Zhou Dynasty’s ceremonial rituals, Confucius defined yellow, blue-green, white, red and black as standard colors. He related them to benevolence, virtue and kindness and incorporated them into formal ceremonies. People of the Zhou Dynasty honored red.
During that time, people incorporated colors when naming seasons and directions. A blue-green sun represented spring. Its main guardian god was a green-blue dragon, and its direction was east. Summer’s color was red, guarded by a red sparrow, and its direction was south. Autumn was white, guarded by a white tiger with a westerly direction. Winter was represented by black, guarded by a black tortoise, and its direction was north.
Qin Shi Huang unified China in 211 BC and began the Qin Dynasty. He followed his ancestors’ traditions, distinguished black from white, respected the virtue of water and “decided that October was the beginning of winter and its color was a superior black.” When he ascended the throne, “the color of his clothing and flags was black.”
Because of its association with gold, yellow began to symbolize the royal court after the Han Dynasty. The emperor’s subjects could not wear yellow clothing.
Although regarded as a secondary color, purple signifies a propitious omen and solemnity. Among the Chinese people, there is the saying “purple sparrows in beams, carries mud in pairs, coming and going.”
However, during the Han Dynasty, bright purple was often regarded as an extremely precious and rare color. In the Tang dynasty, officials above the rank of Fifth Class as well as member of the royal court wore purple clothing. A purpose border on clothing often made an elegant touch in apparel.
