Nai-ni Chen's Year of the Dog Disappoints

We started the Chinese New Year with the Nai-Ni Chen Dancers special Chinese Zodiac production that incorporates dance, contemporary music, and martial arts. Each year they create dances based on the Chinese Zodiac animal and I had always heard great reviews – but never gone. In 2006, we saw traditional Chinese dances and three of the company’s new dances: The Double Lion Dance, the Peacock Dance and a Double Spear Dance. One seemed especially long for the younger audience members as it was mostly instrumental with only a tiny bit of dancing.

I think the educational version would have been better for us - I heard good reviews about that performance. (I heard that they 'taught' a bit of body percussion demonstration in that - although I don't know if that is what they called it.) I enjoyed much of what I saw - but even for me, as an adult, 'that' instrumental piece was quite long!

The “Year of the Dog” was not written up last time I checked, but I recommend their other study guides.