Acton Hosts Chinese Music Night
I first heard about the 2009 Acton Chinese Music Night on Facebook. I know many people are oblivious to upcoming events until they see the red-and-white calendar icon marked “31” on their Facebook homepage. Enticed by the ideas that I only had to travel ten minutes from my house to attend the event, and that I had not attended a Chinese festival in nearly five years, I immediately took the chance to go.
As I entered the school on that evening, I could not help but notice the tremendous number of people in attendance. Many of them were students of ABRHS or Acton Chinese Language School. I stood briefly outside the auditorium doors, wondering if anyone thought I was strange for bringing a bright yellow notepad and pencils to take notes on a Chinese music festival. After I entered, the lights dimmed. To get seats, some friends and I rushed to the furthest left corner of the auditorium so we were able to sit together.
The well-dressed hosts, Pauline Zheng, an ABRHS sophomore, and Danny Chiao, an ABRHS senior, presented their introduction as a convergence of Chinese and English. Once the hosts finished, the majestic night began. The first performance, an upbeat folk song, was performed by the GBCCA Chinese Music Ensemble. After the song, the conductor explained and presented each instrument in the ensemble, using English so the audience could learn more about Chinese instruments. The curtains closedfor the first time, and one member of the ensemble got trapped outside the curtain, remaining on stage. My friend, Bhushan Deshpande, chuckled with me at the first of many comedic events to come during the night.
The dance performance of “Flying Kite” by the girls of Biyun Dance Studio was followed by another very traditional dance. Performed by the Boston Beijing Opera Association, the “Goddess Showering Blossoms from Heaven” depicted the arrival of blossoms as the representation of joy. Five musicians played instruments on the side while a woman dressed in pink, white, and yellow garments, representing different blossoms, took the stage and sang of mankind’s misery being dispelled by the showering of blossoms by a goddess from heaven.
After the beautiful Beijing Opera performance, a dance of selections from the fairytale The Nightingale captured my attention. The lively ballet scene, performed by the Commonwealth Ballet Company, portrayed a Chinese Emperor’s obsession with the beautiful song of the nightingale, a mania so strong that the emperor keeps a nightingale in captivity. As the nightingale, played by ABRHS sophomore JoJo Tsacoyeanes, routinely attempted to depart, the emperor picked her up to show captivity, until the emperor received a bejeweled mechanical bird, played by Malia Moses, to replace the nightingale. The three performers recreated this merry scene from feudal China in a combination of European and Chinese ballet while constantly making the audience laugh at the small bits of comedy. A group of five other dancers, including AB students Yifan Zhang, Kristen Carpenter, and Emily Neale, joined the stage after the nightingales and emperor left and danced spectacularly to finish the act.M
But now we have to ponder one question: how can a Chinese festival go on without acrobatics? The answer: it simply cannot! As the confident ABRHS sophomore Jason Pao took the stage, with his five years of expertise in handling the Chinese yo-yo, no one predicted that the entire audience could be blown away by the tricks spawned by a simple Chinese toy. He executed every stunt perfectly, twirling the yo-yo around with one hand, and keeping it in the air for a surprising amount of time. He manipulated the Chinese yo-yo in ways that seemed to defy gravity. By the end of his performance, he had instilled awe into what now was nothing short of a gaping audience. Melissa Wang, an ABRHS junior who helped out by advertising, selling tickets, and ushering during the event, later commented, “Jason seemed to have a group of fangirls sitting in the front row who anxiously screamed after he daringly attempted and completed each trick. It was fun not only to watch Jason’s amazing performance, but also to watch the audience members absolutely transfixed by the yo-yo!”
Finally, the pre-intermission performance brought us the Sunshine Dance Troupe who danced the “Spring Breeze,” a tribute to the arrival of spring in China. The adult dancers were dressed in green and made smooth movements to rise and to reflect the growth of plants. Afterwards, they began to dance with movements that reflected those of harvesting crops. This elegant dance represented the importance of spring, the representation of new life, to farmers in China.
During the intermission, ABRHS alum Yang Yang played the piano for nearly fifteen minutes. However, courtesy of the blatantly poor judgment on the part of the organizers of the event, the quiet and un-amplified music of the piano was crushed by the massive amount of conversation and chaos during the intermission. The poor planning ultimately made little use of the MIT student’s hard work.
Although the first half of Acton Chinese Music Night was dominated by natural themes of beauty, plants, flowers, singing birds, and seasonal harvests, the second half began by making a very different impression. The first act of the second half was the demonstration of the Chinese drum by the Cambridge Center for Chinese Culture youth drum team. The drums represented the summoning of armies to war. The boys began to play with a deceptively slow start. However, they crescendoed powerfully, representing the strength necessary to undertake a war. Garbed in black clothing with gold insignias, the boys played the drums in a unified and authoritative manner, using sudden drops in volume to generate suspense. I was very surprised at the power of the vibrations I felt as I sat in one of the two furthest corner seats in the auditorium. As the performance ended, Bhushan and I silently nodded at each other in wide-eyed awe.
The next performance featured Ching Wei Lin and the Meantones Recorder Quartet, playing the songs “Chinese Suite,” “Renaissance Suite,” and a compilation of 60s pop music and jazz tunes using recorders. As the four played their first song, the audience became relaxed by the jolly and carefree tunes. As the quartet began to prepare for their second song, two members put their small recorders aside and took out recorders that were as tall as the musicians themselves. I laughed along with the rest of the audience. The “Renaissance Suite” is a very smooth tune compared to all the rest. The last piece, a medley of pop music and jazz that included the Bobby Day tune “Rockin’ Robin,” brought everyone back to a joyful mood.
Of course, as any audience member might anticipate, a Chinese night will most likely involve martial arts. The Acton Chinese Martial Arts champion team took over the stage, using fake weapons such as long swords and nunchucks. Their performance incorporated what the instructor called “the combination of attacking, philosophy, and choreography.” After the student martial artists fought with their instructor for the first part of the performance, they unified to present impressive martial arts moves in perfectly synchronized motion.
However, the 2009 Acton Chinese Music Night could not go on without a second round of acrobatics. As the tenth group of performers entered the stage, two young boys attempted to fill the very large shoes of Jason Pao by trying their own yo-yo tricks. After their first few attempts ended in minor mistakes, the boys stabilized their movements in the latter half of their performance. But the main attraction in this performance was the woman, Wang Ju Chen, who came out to balance and spin eight dishes using a wooden stick for each dish, four dishes on each hand. She demonstrated her flexibility by keeping all the plates in motion and in balance while staying on one foot. Two of her most memorable, awe-inspiring acts were when she balanced on her head and kept the plates spinning in the air. Later, she also did a complete front roll, keeping the plates steady. Her demonstration of adept acrobatics truly impressed many in the audience.
The end of the final acrobatic performance brought us to the penultimate number by the Angel Dance Troupe, a blend of Chinese and Arabic music and dance to represent the effects of each culture on the other. As the dance began, Arabic music played in the background. Veiled women with jugs on their heads came out to dance, representing the traditional garments and practices of the women in the Arabic world. Before long, a girl dressed as a jester came out and began to dance to traditional Chinese music. Soon enough, many more dancers joined the stage in different robes representing the Chinese and Arabic traditions as the brilliant convergence of elegant and majestic Arabic and Chinese music encompassed the auditorium.
This means it is time for the ultimate performance: a presentation by the chorus.As a slew of women dressed in white gowns and men dressed in black suits crowded the onstage bleachers, the conductor and the pianist came out as the chorus prepared to sing two songs in Chinese. Though I did not know either song, they were sung elegantly. As the chorus began to sing the last song of the night, almost all of the performers entered the stage and the walkways in between the sections of the auditorium to give a splendid goodbye.
The entire 2009 Acton Chinese Music Night was breathtaking. Perhaps it was because I had not been to such a festival in many years. Or, perhaps it was the range of performances that took place. The entire event was nothing short of a splendid experience. When another similar event takes place, you will take some time to see an entirely different culture and enjoy the festivities.
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