Auckland, New Zealand, March 15 (CNA) Taiwan's U Theatre made it first appearance at the 2011 Auckland Arts Festival Tuesday night with a successful performance that drew praise from the New Zealand audience.
The performance of the "Sound of the Ocean" by the group, one of the main attractions in the last week of the March 2-20 biennial arts festival, won a three-minute round of applause from the near-capacity audience in the 1,500-seat ABS Theatre at Aotea Center.
"I was blown away by the beautiful drumming in which every beat was so impeccably and beautifully timed. You could feel within yourself each vibration, " New Zealander Phil Tchernegovski said on the sidelines of a post-show cocktail party.
Tchernegovski, whose son went missing during a trip to southern Taiwan in 1998 and was never found, said he was especially impressed with the "throat singing" part of the 90-minute performance.
"It was mind-blowing and added a new dimension to the show, " he said.
Sound of the Ocean, a five-part piece that was created in 1998, is one of the most popular presentations in U Theatre's repertoire.
It depicts stories of water and life though the sound of large drums, gongs, the classic Chinese seven-stringed zither, mantra chants and ceremonial primitive human calls.
"It was a powerful and beautiful performance. I sincerely hope U Theatre will visit Auckland again in the future, " said Lily Ho, a Taiwanese living and working in Auckland.
The festival's artistic director David Malacari, who managed to bring U Theatre to Auckland after four years of preparatory work, described the show as a "beautiful journey."
It was "everything that I hoped it would be and more," he said at the post-show party.
U Theatre is scheduled to stage three more performances of "Sound of the Ocean," from Wednesday to Friday at the same venue.
Taiwan's First Lady Chow Mei-ching, who is on a six-day visit to Auckland to support the company and attend charity activities, watched the show from her seat on the second tier of the theater and afterwards congratulated the troupe on its performance.
In related news, Chow donated dozens of books, including children's storybooks and a collection from the National Palace Museum, and documentary DVDs on Taiwan geography and history to the Central City Library in downtown Auckland Tuesday morning.
The first lady also read stories of Chinese traditions in English and Mandarin to children at a storytelling session at the library.
The donation was valuable to the library -- one of 55 in the city's public library system -- because of the heavy usage of the Chinese-language children's books due to the large Chinese population in the region, said Geoff Chamberlain, manager of service delivery at the library. (By Chris Wang) enditem /pc