Houston Community News >> Chinese Dance Competition Attracts Cream of the Crop
7/7/2007-- NTDTV's Chinese
Classical Dance Competition's first round showcased a high-caliber field of
contestants say competition judges.
Chinese dance expert and judge Ms. Yi Choa provided insight on how she would
judge contestants. "Classical Chinese dance has profound inner meaning, grace
and challenging techniques. It is based on Chinese theories of aesthetics and
its history allowed it many forms of expression in spirit and form."
Ms. Yi said that two dancers can perform the same dance, but their inner spirit
and feelings are different and so each dancer will perform differently. She
noted that the inner qualities of grace and subtlety combined with strength and
flexibility and rhythm figure importantly in Chinese dance. The dancer's inner
beauty is key and, without this, nothing is left. Even if without movement, one
can feel the spirit and this is the essence of Chinese dance. Because modern
dance has taken the stage recently, there have not been many chances for people
to enjoy and appreciate traditional Chinese. But that is changing with this
first-of-a-kind event. Organizers say that the competition will help to return
dance to a form of goodness and beauty. Some of the junior contestants have been
training for about near ten years. One young woman's favorite dance style is the
Chinese ribbon dance while the other favored the sword dance.
Ms. Chen, a dancing teacher with four contestants from Xian Hua, Taiwan, has
been teaching for 26 years Chinese dance, ballet and contemporary Chinese dance.
(The Epoch Times)She said that the difference between contemporary and classical
Chinese dance is that the dancers can express themselves freely from the inside
out whereas Chinese classical dance has more traditional moves and more
techniques. However, she said contemporary dance prepares the dancer to do
classical dance.
The competition is making history in the dance world. It is the first classical
Chinese dance competition in the history of China that is taking place outside
of the Mainland. Eighty contestants, divided by male and female in junior and
adult divisions, competed. Ten young women and six young men qualified for the
junior division semi finals and ten men and women will compete in the adult
semi-finals.
The contestants came from all over the world, such as Taiwan, Canada, US, Hong
Kong, Singapore and Korea and Russia. The talent pool brought incredible dancers
with the highest level technique.
According to competition Vina Li, judging was difficult because the artistic
representation and the techniques of all contestants were very good. Costumes
were not taken into account.
She also said that it was difficult to make the decisions because while some had
good artistic style they had bad techniques and vice versa. Tomorrow it will
still be more difficult to select winners because skill levels are similar. "It
will be really challenging."
Another member of the nine-judge panel, Ms. Chen, said the competition was very
good. "The competitors performed within the requirements. A good number even
demonstrated a much higher skill level than what was required," she noted.
Dorris, a Chinese American in the audience, said that she is really excited
about this dance competition. "We have so many dancers from all over the world
and I congratulate those who made the semi finals."
The excitement continues Saturday with semi-final judging.
(Contributed by Epoch Times)