Of course, by now it would be unthinkable if any revival of My Dream didn't include the troupe's signature sensation, the show-stopping Thousand-hand Bodhisattva, arguably the repertoire's most challenging piece. To recreate the Buddhist deity in its amorphous magnificence - extending her (there have been inconclusive debates if it should be his instead) helping hands to the suffering mass - twenty-one dancers had to queue up in a bee line, with only the foremost visible to the audience while all others coordinated their hand gestures in the back. Collective precision, not only synchronized but in sequence as well, was the key here, and don't forget that all the 21 artists are deaf, unable to hear musical cues and reliant on the sign conductors in the wings. It was an ornate, golden, and mesmerizing performance, by far the biggest visual reward in the show.
Thursday's revival, on the occasion of the troupe's 30th anniversary and two score years of China's reform and opening up policy, was also a charity performance organized by the China Disabled Persons' Federation. The Beijing Exhibition Theater, with over 2700 seats, was packed with invited attendees, including disabled people and handicapped workers in Beijing, representatives from various UN agencies and other international interest groups in China, foreign diplomats and college and high school students. The aisles were packed with a traffic jam of wheelchairs.
The show's perennial popularity – it's been staged more than two thousand times in over a hundred countries - is a testament to its transcending artistic appeal, as it speaks in the universal and timeless language of beauty and resilience, of dignity and hope.
