Julie Nesrallah is a CBC radio host and a professional mezzo-soprano who once sang for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. She saw Shen Yun in Toronto on March 27.
She was also blown away by every aspect of the performance.
“I am not exaggerating when I say it was complete and utter perfection. It’s like you’re watching a dream, everybody is so in sync, nothing is unperfect,” she said. “The storytelling was incredible, even though they’re not saying a word, you totally understand what’s going on. The costumes were out of this world, and the effects of the backdrop with the computer-generated images and then the dancers coming out. I mean it was just so mind-blowingly excellent.”
As a professional mezzo-soprano herself, she was especially impressed with the Tenor.
“He just came out and gave you his heart and soul, and the crowd couldn’t help but respond with their own hearts and souls,” Nesrallah added.
Shen Yun draws inspiration from China’s 5,000 years of civilization and the virtues it has long embraced and passed down through its culture.
Many artists admired the inner beauty that shined through the performers and said it gave them a peaceful feeling.
“How elegant the moves are, how elegant the dance, the costume, it says a lot,” said actress Alina Lapteva. “In nowadays culture I think the elegant aspect faded away and it becomes something different, so it’s beautiful to see when it’s brought back.”
“The movements, it’s almost like a mathematician’s sequence,” said Brenda Santos Olsvik, a professional dancer.
She was really amazed by the skills of the dancers and the techniques they use.
“You have to think about the whole body. It’s not only one part, but everything is connected I feel in the Chinese dance, and that amazed me a lot, and the visions and the lines of where you look,” said Olsvik. “It’s like an ancient old tradition of dancing and I can see that on stage here.”
“And I feel this performance had an overview of calmness and royalness in the whole spectrum and that is very beautiful to see,” she added.
Karen Espana is an actress known for the Cold Blood TV Series documentary. What struck her the most was the message she got through the stories.
“I think the movements, like everyone said, were so graceful,” said Espana. “And I really love the spiritual messages that were also given forth. It all tied in really nice with the orchestra, the movements, the costumes, and just the brightness of everything.”
“We are all part of the one, of the one divine source, so it just kind of gave that sense of being part of a divinity,” she added. “And even the meaning of Shen Yun, divine movement, and it just incorporated it really well and I like the fact that it was a deep and meaningful story behind it. Great storytelling, really appreciated it.”
NTD News, Toronto, Canada
