By Caroline Lam/Epoch Times Australian Staff
March 23, 2007

Xuejun Wang (R) soars in "The Loyalty of Yue Fei"

A record numbers of students attended the matinee performance of the New Tang Dynasty Television's (NTDTV) Chinese New Year Spectacular in Melbourne. There were more than five different school groups from Oakleigh Secondary College, Meadowbank Primary, Hunting Tower, Doncaster Secondary College and Geelong College to name a few.

There was enthusiastic feedback from the martial arts display. Max from The Geelong College enjoyed the kung fu scenes and thought that the "hosts were very funny, Kelly and Leeshai had great jokes." He added that everyone "should see it, stating it’s five stars and two thumbs up."

New York-based Australian dancer Mark Abbott who performed in a number of dances - Creation, The Loyalty of Yue Fei, To the Rightful Place, A Dunhuang Dream, Mulan and Herding on the Mongolian Plains - was pleased with today's performance. He said: "Kids are always the first to applaud, if they like something they will let you know with applause and cheers to make us perform with more energy."

Helen Wu, a grade 7 teacher from Doncaster Secondary College admired the Spectacular and commented that, "I like the one with the long sleeves (Snowy Mountain, White Lotus). I love the movements on stage and the meaning and the kindness to everyone."

"I am from China and totally understand the meanings [of the dances]," she said, "I have heard about Falun Gong before and it is very good...everyone should have a choice and all religions are the same — looking for the truth."

Meryl Thomas, a Melbourne dance teacher at Vogue School of Performing Arts in Coburg and Keilor, was ecstatic with the international show:

"I'm sold 100%. I would travel the world to go and see these performances, but I think everyone else would feel differently about Chinese dance once they had seen the performance. It would be a culture shock.

"This can bring emotion to our modern society, goodness through music, song and dance.  It is visual but it is also emotional.  Dance is a very powerful medium.  It gets to the heart of a lot of things, but then of course I'm sold on it.   I've been dancing all my life.