New Tang Dynasty Televisions Chinese New Year Spectacular offers a truly tantalizing variety of dance this year, featuring all-new dance troupes and drawing upon 5,000 years of history spanning a vast range of different folk traditions from Mongolia to Tibet to the Yunnan region of China.
Acclaimed choreographer Yung Yung Tsuai has been working with the Spectacular since its inception in 2004. Ms. Tsuai came to the United States in 1970 to study contemporary dance on a Martha Graham Scholarship. She stayed on with the Graham Company and still teaches at the Martha Graham School of contemporary dance today.
Ms. Tsuai says the Spectacular is a particularly meaningful production for a lot of people because over the last 100 years, much of Chinas rich traditional culture has been destroyed. People have lost their roots, Ms. Tsuai says. Our performers want wholeheartedly to convey their culture and traditions to the audience to remind them, and themselves, of who the Chinese are.
Hundreds of dancers from all over the United States and Canada rehearsed almost every day for over a year. Yung Yung Tsuai is but one of six dance teachers, all of whom graduated from...