There was something imperturbable in the faces of the girls performing the classic Mongolian bowl dance at the Las Vegas Hilton on Monday night, as if both their grace and concentration had been handed down to them through millennia of tradition. With three bowls balanced on each of their heads, the dancers swayed and shimmied and swirled, and it was enough to watch them for a moment to know they had mastered the secret arts of evoking ancient emotions.
And that’s what they did throughout the bilingual show, the Chinese New Year Spectacular. Through opera, classic Chinese dances, a live orchestra and physical rhythmic storytelling, the girls, along with other assorted artists, tried to transmit the glory of China’s immense and dynastic past to the audience inside Barry Manilow’s theater inside the Hilton.
Which is to say, it was a major cultural event that took place in the heart of Las Vegas on the night of January 21.
And it was brought to town by the Divine Performing Arts, a group from New York whose belief in the redemptive powers of culture is so strong that they attempt, on almost a nightly basis and around the nation, the inconceivable feat of encapsulating 5,000 years of Chinese culture—including contemporary movements—and delivering it all in one extravagant dose.
The crowd who came to partake in it included state dignitaries, both young and old powerbrokers and many Asian locals. They filled the theater, and they watched with a reservation typical of, and a reverence due to, high-culture events.
he Chinese press, both American and international, besieged the event and treated it as if it were groundbreaking, for the simple reason that everyone seems to believe Las Vegas is devoid of such culture. Not just outsiders, but insiders as well.
“What do you think of the Chinese Spectacular coming to Las Vegas?” asked a reporter from a Chinese news station in San Francisco.
“It’s a statement that we’re more than just bright lights,” said City Councilman Larry Brown, pointing his finger to the ubiquitous Strip. “It’s a big statement, that we’re becoming more mature as a city.”
The truth, however, is that locals interested in the standard forms of high culture have many options. There are Broadway shows, fine-art galleries and exquisite restaurants up and down the Strip. Las Vegas serves as home to the Nevada Ballet Theater, and the Las Vegas philharmonic is alive and kicking. Clark County hosts various cultural dances and performances on a monthly basis.
Thus, contrary to common thought, the Chinese Spectacular was neither unprecedented nor anomalous in town as a cultural event. But it was noteworthy. For the splendor of the show’s sights and sounds were unparalleled, even in Las Vegas, where high culture, it seems, will always take a back seat to the lurid vices for which the city’s known.