“Having a ballet background, agility is so important, and something that I know that they strive for,” said Carla Way, a former dance studio owner.
“They have worked really hard to make sure that they can do amazing things with the tumbling and the spins and the turns and the lifts, and the men that you can tell are so strong. I don’t understand why anybody ever thinks men who dance are not as masculine, because they really are.”
Voldi Way, the owner of Way Forward, said, “It was amazing. I loved it. I was blown away. And my only regret is I didn’t come to see it sooner, because my father lived in China for the last 10 years of his life, and he really wanted us to see this show, and it’s been around for a while, and we kept meaning to go, and we just never did, and we finally did, and I wish I’d gone sooner, because it was amazing.”
Ms. Way said, “I love the arm movements, and the hands are very expressive. There’s a lot of emotion. You can tell that they’re expressing through themselves when they’re dancing, and the unity between all of them is beautiful.”
“Some of the notes are very punctuated, depending on what’s going on with the scene. And it really adds to what the performers are trying to convey as well. And so I thought just the whole thing is being done very well,” said Nicholas Sayed, a musician.
“You can really see the authentic, the old, 5,000 years of history in one place. It’s really beautiful. My kids are enjoying it as well,” said Sardor Umrdinov, the founder and CEO of Home Alliance. “I believe it’s really important to keep the culture because without roots in the past, there is no future. So you have to always keep up and carry your past with you and [into] the future, to have a bright future.”
“The whole performance was really inspiring. I mean, the music was amazing, the dancing was phenomenal, and I loved that everything was a story. Every unique thing was a story. Plus, it felt like a little bit of history, too. There’s some history, Chinese history, that I wasn’t aware of,” said Mr. Way.
Drawing inspiration from China’s rich cultural heritage, each performance displays themes of spirituality, morality, and kindness, values found at the origin of traditional Chinese culture.
“A lot of the stories had very beautiful resolutions that were about kindness and being kind to people. And I felt like they showed that, with inner beauty and strength, that you can fight a lot of evil and a lot of anger and greed,” said Ms. Way.
“I hope that that inspires people to help [others] .... the huddled masses, is what it says on the Statue of Liberty. That we’re supposed to protect and help our people. And our people are everyone who comes to us. So I think that we need more of that in the world, and the world is one beautiful place where everybody can lift each other up.”
Mr. Way said, “The whole show, to me, felt very spiritual, and it was interesting, because the announcer one time said that they couldn’t show this in China. So that’s kind of a shame, because it’s Chinese history. So the whole production had a divine, spiritual theme.”
