Sep 21: Song Dynasty Land

In the afternoon, we went to what was billed as a Song Dynasty Town. After Minority-ville, I was a wee bit worried, but it turned out to be a lot of fun: think Rennaissance Festival, complete with archery, dressing up in time-period clothes, and athletic challenges.

We all had tickets for the evening show: "The Romance of the Song Dynasty." I assumed it would be more of the same.

Instead, it was, and I am not exaggerating, the single most dynamic spectacle I have ever seen.

It started plainly enough with, oh, some rousing music and a 50 person chorus line dancing and doing acrobatics, in a rendition of how the Song Dynasty came to power. Then came the Emperor's birthday party -- the entire theater rearranged as the front section of seats split in two and smoothly moved to each side to make room for a larger stage. Women dressed in gold belly dancing, jugglers, two gymnasts balancing on each other. . .

Wait. I must stop here. It occurs to me that when you hear the word "gymnast" you think that pansy stuff they do at the Olympics. What I mean is a woman who bends her bodies flatly in half, backward. All while another woman is standing on her stomach. On her hands. Curling her feet down over her back down around under her chin. While balancing a cup filled with water on the top of her head.

My jaw pretty much stayed open from here on out. Which was good, because the force with which it would have hit the floor when the waterfall -- two story high piles of stone, with thousands of gallons of water pouring over it, and a whole laser show thing happening above it -- appeared on stage might have given me whiplash. After the waterfall was removed, they played on the mist in the air with a swirling green light that created a cavernous, Emerald City fantasy land.

All of this was in the name of retelling a fairy tale about the White Snake Woman who fell in love with a human on Hangzhou's West Lake. Next, they told the tale of two butterflies, for which it was clearly necessary to have two acrobats flying around the stage hanging from white ribbons in ballet poses.

Last came something billed as "Hangzhou -- the fun city." This was a catchall review, including two women doing tricks on rollerskates, a Japanese geisha dance, can-can girls, and a strip tease done under blacklight so you could see the clothes coming off, but not the body underneath.

So much better than Cats.