The Peony Pavilion is perhaps one of the most notable of the Ming era Kun Operas of China, and was presented at the Fall for Dance production in a heavily abridged form, with an emphasis on dance over singing/dialogue. Despite this however, many operatic elements were present, including a glorious spectrum of costumes, makeup, color motifs, and ornate, beautiful props (i.e. the Prince’s gown, falling rose petals, etc.). Because of this operatic heritage, this segment of the show was overwhelmingly more lavish and stimulating than its co-performances, and such exciting grandiosity, along with a clearly conceived storyline, made it by far my favorite piece of the night. The dances themselves were ballet inspired, set to an assortment of distinguished Romantic-era classical Western pieces, including works by Debussy, Holst, Prokofiev, Ravel, and others. This cultural blending between the occident and the orient I found quite powerful, and a novel choice by the company, giving the piece in my opinion a universal context, and which projected a statement of Art as a uniting, global phenomenon. Condensing a 20 hour opera into a fifteen minute dance piece is a Herculean task, and admittedly, while I was impressed, it was somewhat difficult to follow the story. Despite this however, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, both due to the aforementioned reasons and the extreme grace, agility, and flowing movements expressed by the dancers, all of whom conducted themselves gorgeously and professionally, and, especially in contrast to the preceding piece, were able to come together to paint an aesthetic painting of movement, finesse, and chromatic splendor.