(Clearwisdom.net) Dr. Charles Morrison is the Dean of the Faculty of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University, and a renowned music theorist. He watched the Divine Performing Arts show at Waterloo-Kitchener's Circle in the Square Theatre on Tuesday, January 7, 2009. He was fascinated by the show's music and praised the erhu music as gripping and haunting. On the comprehensive presentation of culture in the format of the show, he said, "Art is good in the sense that it can remind us of all aspects of life in a kind of non-threatening way but just sort of give us a history lesson and be portrayed artistically."

Dr. Morrison said, "It was a wonderful show! It was great, visually stunning! The costumes, the colors. I think one of the things that struck me was the rhythm, and the music of course and the melody and harmony. But the rhythm and the dance are just very lively. I thought a brilliant show!"

"I think music is fundamentally rhythmic, and we as human beings are fundamentally rhythmic. I thought the choreography worked very well with the rhythmic life of the music. The music was very compelling. I particularly liked where the music represented more of the Chinese culture than the Western because I wanted to hear more of the Chinese culture. But certainly the rhythmic aspects of the music worked brilliantly with the choreography and the color. The various colors of the orchestra, the instruments and so on worked so beautifully with the colors of the costumes and the sets."

"I found myself noticing Western and Eastern at different times, thinking parts of it sounded fairly Western and then all of a sudden there would be the sounds of the erhu or one of the Chinese scales used in an otherwise Western context and so you get this little hint of the more Eastern Chinese tradition."

"I love that instrument. I think that sound is one of the most gripping, haunting sounds of anything that I have heard. I mean it's gorgeous! It's almost an extension of a human-like sound even more so than a violin or a traditional stringed instrument, which can be very vocal-like. The erhu is just an amazing sound, it's beautiful!"

He added that the type of scales used for the erhu have "a sort of very deep emotional quality to them. There is a certain sense in which one feels quite connected to that music in a fairly deep way."

The show overall, he said, was a "wonderful mix and connection between the visual and the aural. It's all there, it's very exuberant it's very passionate, emotional, both the music, the dance and the drama, so it's a real package. All of it works together wonderfully. Much more than just the music alone or just the dance alone. The choreography worked I thought particularly well."