Chinese performance displays ethnic cultures to Houston

Singing and dancing to folk songs, actors and actresses from China's southwestern Guizhou province presented here on Sunday local audience a show of colorful minority cultures.

About 1,000 Houstonians walked into the theater to enjoy the one-and-a-half-hour "Wind of Colorful Guizhou", during which 48 people performed local dances and sang folk songs about myths stories of China's minorities.

In the show, spectators could see the wooden drum dance, a traditional way of celebration in the Miao culture, and the Dongzu Dage, or Ka Lau Chorus of the Dong people, which has ranked in the UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list.

The inspiration of the performance comes from cultural heritages of various ethnic communities living in southeast Guizhou Province, home to 49 of China's 56 minority groups.

According to Xie Yunliang, Deputy Consul General of the Chinese Consulate General in Houston, this show demonstrated Guizhou people's love for their homeland and hope for the future.

The performance, currently on a tour to four U.S. cites, would hopefully boost cultural exchanges and understandings of the peoples in China and the United States. Organisers also wish to see it promote tourism in Guizhou, a province that remains less known to the outside world due to its geographical remoteness and unsatisfactory traffic situation.

Guizhou Province, however, enjoys breath-taking natural and historical sites, said Xu Qi, director-general of Guizhou Provincial Department of Culture.

"Wind of Colorful Guizhou" made its debut in 2005 and has seen about 2,000 performances staged in 10 U.S. cities in the past three years, attracting more than 2 million spectators, according to the Sino-Professional Club in Houston, one of the sponsors.

The show has won applauses in Chicago before it came to Houston, and will meet people in Miami and New York in the following days.