2457 These are the musicians playing the traditional instruments. Excellent sound.
2462 The dragon dance troupe forming a square with the dragon’s head in the center. You can see the ball he chases and its operator on the right. I decreased the contrast of the photo to make the dancers more visible.
2470 These are the ribbon dancers twirling with their 30-foot scarves.
2471 This is the mask dancer.
2482 The cast of the show with the lights up.
Oops! Forgot to include info about the onboard show this evening. First a duo played some ethnic music on a plucked horizontal harp and a three string violin type instrument played like a cello, vertically. They did throw in one John Denver song which sounded a little strange on these instruments.
Next a dance team performed a dragon dance. This very typical Chinese dance involves a dragon chasing a ball around the stage. The dancers controlling the dragon wave it in complex designs that involve them having to hop over the streaming dragon and duck so they don’t interfere with its motion. Sort of like jump rope using an 18 inch thick rope. The dancers have to be pretty agile but since the dance is performed in the dark with the luminescent dragon lit by black light it’s very difficult to see them moving. Every now and then they would form a shape, triangle or square, with the dragon’s body and have the head staring out at the audience. They were very energetic.
Two ladies in traditional dress performed the Ribbon Dance. They gold a scarf like object that appear to be about 30 feet long around their shoulders and make it form designs by manipulating it. If you’ve ever seen the rhythmic gymnastics at the Olympics, it’s a lot like the ribbon on a stick style but the apparatus is one long scarf instead of two separate ribbons on sticks.
The last act was uniquely Chinese. The national art form is the Mask Dancer. They wear elaborate costumes with a long cape and ornate headdress. They walk and dance in a very stylized way and every so often the mask he’s wearing changes. The trick is they do it so fast that you don’t see it happen. One second he wearing a red and white mask, next second it’s blue and black. These are full face masks, not small by any means. What I’m wondering is where he keeps them all, he must have worn about 12 different ones over the course of the performance. Oh, I forgot the acrobat dressed all in purple that would flash across the stage every now and then doing various flips, jumps, cartwheels and dives. The mask dancer walked in a very deliberate but quick heel to toe step that reminded me of race walkers but without the elaborate hip gyrations needed to go really fast. In fact, his body seemed to float under his cape. Every not and then he’d grab one or both of the almost 5 foot long antennas, made primarily of a pheasant tail feather with a peacock eye at the base. that stick straight up from the top of his head and manipulate it in some way. At first the audience didn’t know exactly what to make of the whole thing but they warmed to him completely by the time he was half way finished and he got a great round of applause at the end. Anything that’s too different from what you might see in North America often confuses many of my fellow travelers and sometimes they never recover. Sad, but true.
As they closed the show everyone came back on stage and I was glad they did. The stage lights were on and the mask dancer and dragon dancers joined forces. With the lights up you could see the work the dragon dancers have to do to make the dragon writhe in the designs they form during the dance. The mask dancer came armed with a large bright blue flag with which he seemed to be shooing the dragon and the ball around the stage.
It was a great show as these local shows that come on the ship usually are.
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