Audience members attended two Shen Yun performances at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, California, on Dec. 29 and Dec. 30, 2021.
“Oh my gosh, it is so beautiful, so precise! The colors are so amazing. The story of the culture, we just love it. Love it,” said Bev Cleland, a former medical professional. “I can’t wait to bring my 5-year-old granddaughter here.”
“The artistry and the history, the athleticism and the grace. It’s all just phenomenal,” said Kurt Philipsen, a research and development project manager.
“The balance between fast and slow. It was just very exciting and yet soothing,” Tom Ream, a retired regional CIO at Sutter Health.
They enjoyed the stories Shen Yun depicted in their performances.
“The dance with the long sleeves and learning that originally that was how people dressed in heaven, I just thought that was a beautiful analogy,” said Liz Thach, a professor at Sonoma State University.
“I really like the stories about the monkeys. Those devilish little kids,” said Philipsen. “And yet wove in with the artistry and the history and just all the fun—and yet the strength and the artistry. The whole performance was really amazing.”
Through dance and music, Shen Yun aims to revive 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture.
“If you never knew about it before, and you see it, then you begin to realize what actually did get lost and is now being revived. And I think that’s difficult, a difficult thing to overcome, if you don’t put some real strong intentionality behind it and make it somehow live in the minds of people today who’ve never seen it before,” said Ream.
“I was emotional on how beautiful everything was, seeing how people in China just appreciate their own culture, and how they interpret it through all the dance and the colors and the music, just everything about it. It’s just beautiful,” said Cleland.
Shen Yun heads to San Francisco next with five performances.
NTD News, Berkeley, California
