The artistry of Shen Yun Performing Arts caught the attention of Mark Nelson, who watched the presentation of traditional Chinese culture at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland, on Dec. 22.
“[Shen Yun gives] a deeper understanding of the Chinese culture in a way that I’m just simply not been exposed to through the news,” said Mark Nelson, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.
According to its program book, the company’s mission is to revive China’s tradition and bring to the audience 5,000 years of culture and legendary stories through classical Chinese dance and music.
“It was fantastic. Absolutely fabulous,” said Ciprian Crainiceanu a professor of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University. “I mean we loved the dancers, the colors … we absolutely enjoyed it.”
“I love the discipline and the artistic expression,” said Grady Hillman, author of two books of poetry (“Razor Wire” received the Austin Book Award in 1986) and a book of Quechua Inca translations, “Return of the Inca” (1986). “It was really beautiful. I really enjoyed that.”
“I wasn’t aware of their rich Chinese heritage. You know, when I really know of China’s, I think stems from my own lifetime, which is more communist China,” said Kathleen Adams Pratt, an associate professor at HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College. “And this has been marvellous to really explore the rich heritage of the Chinese culture.”
“It increased my understanding of the spiritual quality of the Chinese culture and how the Chinese people are very peaceful and loving people, and they’re very spiritual and that sort of thing as opposed to what you kind of hear on the news have been historically taught, in particular now with all the stuff within the news about trade secrets and that sort of thing and you think of this war-like thing when in fact it’s not who the Chinese people are historically,” said Nelson. “It’s very difficult to gain that understanding possibly outside of the arts.”
“It was defiantly about the divine within us and between heaven and our own spirits and trying to connect the two,” Hillman added.
NTD News, Baltimore, Maryland
