Shen Yun Performing Arts is giving more than two dozen performances this week throughout the United States and Europe.
“It was just a rare form of art,” said Melony Stuckey, a painter and artist who saw Shen Yun with her friend in Columbia, South Carolina. “It was amazing, just beautiful. … The color of the choreography, it was just beautiful. The storyline, we really felt like we were in it.”
“The costumes, the set, the music, everything just combined was just stunning,” said her friend Mandy Summers Smith, a gallery owner and certified interior decorator.
For Michael Gasque, deputy director of Interservice Postal Training Activity in the U.S. Army, the performance was really “a learning experience.”
“Motivational to myself and inspirational,” said Gasque, who also saw the performance in Columbia. “I was just very happy I could do this and come out and bring my mother-in-law who’s 90 years old. And I don’t regret it a bit.”
Audiences say Shen Yun is more than just entertaining; it is also thought-provoking.
“The performance is fabulous. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Richard Pittman, senior principal at Bath Group, Inc., who saw Shen Yun in Corpus Christi, Texas. “I love their facial expressions,” he added. “They’re putting on a play. This is not just a ballet dance performance. This is a theater play.”
“We take a lot of things for granted,” he said. “And to see the things that go on and people obviously went through, kind of opens your eyes up a little bit more of how things were before.”
From legends to folk dance, to myths, to stories inspired by the current persecution of faith in China, Shen Yun uses short dance programs to bring ancient values to the modern stage.
“That was very powerful because I work in human rights. So I know it’s true. It’s very sad,” said professor William Saunders, director at the Center for Human Rights. “I just think people need to know what’s going on in China and how terrible things are being done to Falun Gong people and other people.”
He said while Shen Yun aims to revive ancient Chinese culture before communism, “the Chinese Communist Party hates traditional Chinese culture. So it’s a shame, it’s sad.”
“You can just tell the kind of peace and harmony that was in the culture before the communists,” he added. “But I am very happy that this is being done. And I salute the people who are doing it, to keep this culture alive and to show the whole world.”
After witnessing China’s divinely-inspired culture, audience members said they feel uplifted.
“I felt it gave me a lot of energy. I mean, just watching the dances and everything else, it kind of had me in a mindset of putting myself somewhere else for a while, getting away from the day-to-day activities or challenges, if you would, and it kind of just let you enjoy yourself for a while,” said Gasque.
Smith said she felt “uplifted, inspired,” and Stuckey added that the performance is “not something you see every day and something that you’ll remember for a long time.”
“They should come [to] see it here, and around the country,” said Saunders.
NTD News, New York
