Ancient Spirituality from China to Australia
By Janine Rankin/Epoch Times Australia Staff
March 23, 2007
Melbourne is a city of many cultures with diverse world views and differing ways of honoring the traditions of their ancestors. New Tang Dynasty Television's (NTDTV) Chinese New Year Spectacular is just the show that epitomizes such a sensation.
Janina Harding, the Indigenous Arts Program Manager for the City of Melbourne, enjoyed the show and noted some resemblance between Aboriginal culture and Chinese culture.
"I go back to my homeland and I know a lot about Aboriginal culture here in Australia," she said, "I felt there were similarities in the concert relating to the pain and how my people also suffered."
Ms Harding is a former artistic associate with the Melbourne Festival and has taught Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. The performance she liked was "Mulan" stating that "[it] was great."
"Sometimes in Aboriginal culture they portray the wrong thing, so I understood this performance. I feel like I want to go to China now to see the temples and Buddhas. I've studied Chinese history at university and always had a fascination for the Chinese," Ms Harding said.
While the legendary Chinese heroine Mulan became well known in the West through Walt Disney's feature animation in 1998, her popularity in China reaches back centuries. Her celebrity status owes much to the "Ballad of Mulan", which dates from China's Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534CE).
Mulan is said to have disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the army in place of her elderly father. Only after she returned from triumphant battle was her true identity discovered. She was honored for her bravery.
Chinese-born Australian national Vina Lee − principal dancer and choreographer for the Spectacular – drew similarities from both cultures during her work with indigenous children at the Aboriginal Dance Theatre in Sydney.
"They showed me Aboriginal dance and told me Aboriginal spiritual stories − some are very close to the Chinese culture, they are very close actually," she told AAP.
According to Australian Aboriginal culture, music is included in everyday settings as well as within sacred ceremonies.