Got room for one more New Year's party?
This Sunday's touring Chinese New Year show at the Orpheum Theatre promises enough eye candy and dazzling performances to top any night of excessive drinking.
"Carnival China Style" boils down 5,000 years of Chinese performance art into a three-hour show. This includes everything from the opera singers and dance companies to a champion hula-hooper and gut-wrenching contortionists.
In the past few years, China has successfully pushed itself onto the world stage, both as a political power and a cultural behemoth -- displayed most recently with bright, galvanizing pride during the 2008 Summer Olympics.
This show boasts the largest delegation of Chinese performers to tour North America, organizers say. The 60 performers were chosen from thousands back home, many coming from the Beijing Dance Academy and the China Broadcasting Performing Arts Ensemble.
Like so many things in China, the show is government-sanctioned, having been approved by the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese.
In 2008 and 2009, the show was performed in Los Angeles and several Canadian cities. Minneapolis, like other cities on the current tour, wasn't chosen for its large Chinese population (we don't have one). Instead, the show is reaching for a broader demographic.
"I do not think Caucasian Americans have seen a show like this in the United States. And I don't think I have," said Christina Deng Morrison, president of the U.S.-Jiangxi Development Association in the Twin Cities.
