| Foreign Folk Arts Surprising Audience on the Ancient Stage of the Watery Region |
| by Li Ting and Wang Yuting From Suzhou Daily 06-13-2010 |
09-27-2007 Yesterday afternoon at 14:00, melodious music came out from the ancient stage in Tuisi Park of the historical town Tongli. Within the cheering and applauses of hundreds of audience, one of the tour performances of the 7th China International Folk Art Festival entered Tongli town. During the two-hour performance, the excellent programs, such as Italian panpipes, German folk dances, nad Hula-Hula Dance, made the ancient stage the most conspicuous scenery in Tongli Town yesterday. Below the horizontal inscribed board of “Universal Prospect” around the ancient stage, there suddenly came so many foreign artists who were dressed in different costumes, which attracted residents and tourists to surround the stage. There was not enough room at the backstage, thus many troupes had a rest under the trees and before shops and waited for their turn. The hula-hula dance performers, whose dresses were the most special, attracted people’s curiosity and attention. The Tongareva Enua Culture Dance Ensemble of Cook Islands is the troupe that dances the hula-hula dance best in its country. In 2006, the troupe won the first prize in the annual National Constitution Dance Competition. Most of the performers are naked, and the bronze skin under the sun displays their healthiness. Men wore feather headwear, and reddish-brown hula-hula skirts surrounded their waists; girls with long hair wore floral hoops on the head, and pale yellow hula-hula skirts surrounded their waists with great exaggeration. Quite a few people would like to take photos with them and they smiled and took photos with everyone. As the last item of the performance, the Hula-Hula Dance pulled the whole performance to the summit. The audience was all watching attentively. Stepping on the passionate drumbeats, performers danced on the stage in groups or in couple. Their exaggerating movements, dazzling colors and improvisational folk songs evoked the audience’s continuous cheering and applauses. The performers of the Mecklenburg-Pommeraner Folklore Ensemble of Germany were not young. Yesterday the temperature was high, and these performers were all dressed in their heavy national costumes; sweat continuously came out from their white hair. With the accompaniment of their own 4-musician band, the performers danced and turned in circles; the change of formation was natural and fluent. “They are all grandpas and grandmas; it is not easy for them to dance so gracefully.” The audience all got touched and they applauded for them for a long time. In the music the eight performers left the stage and came down to a small vacant lot under the stage. They smilingly invited the Chinese audience to join them, and a warm interaction began. The shy Chinese audience, under the lead of the German elders, danced for a while and at once entered the state and smilingly waved their hands to the surrounding audience who applauded for their performance. |
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