The New York-based Shen Yun performing arts performed in Aix En-Provence, France, taking to the stage for eight performances. French audiences called its classical Chinese dance and live orchestra exceptional.
“Extraordinary! Fabulous! We entered a totally magical universe,” said writer Éliane Sabatier. “I was moved to tears from the beginning. It grabs you. It’s a set, a performance that grabs you.”
“Really an exceptional performance!” said Daniel Mrugalski, who is a former technical director. “Dances, the orchestra, a mixture of music with Chinese instruments and conventional instruments that we find in the West, all beautifully presented by two exceptional presenters. So we are all delighted and it is a performance that I would gladly recommend.”
“It is a pure enchantment and at the same time, highlights the cultural wealth of China. With this grace, this aesthetic which is without equal, and which does not forget to denounce the current crimes of the Chinese communist government, it also seemed important to me to recall it,” said lawyer Bertrand d’Ortoli.
Zelihka Aliouane is the Chief Executive Officer of H.P.S.B, and it was not her first time seeing Shen Yun. “I’ve been to other Shen Yun performances before, that’s why today we are here again.”
“It was fabulous the first time, magical, so spiritual, extremely moving. I had many tears today, again. So it was something absolutely magical, fabulous,” Ms. Aliouane said.
Audience members also touched on the spirituality present throughout the show.
“What comes down from the sky, all this synchronicity between the virtual, which comes down on the stage, and which gives an image of the connection of the divine, which is incarnated with this compassion,” Ms. Aliouane said. “I found, between the technicality and the synchronicity, finally, it is something that gives hope, a lot of hope, an immense hope in what can come down from the sky. But also, it speaks to us, inside, because this compassion exists in us.”
“I immediately understood that it was the creator who came down to save these beings, the human beings that we are, imperfect of course, and that He was perfect,” Mr. Mrugalski said. “This performance is revealing. It is revealing of the baseness of men. We saw some extracts of it anyway. The persecutions. And yet, there is hope, it is in spirituality, it is not in humans, it is in the creator.”
Some said they felt elevated by the performance.
“I think it was when the soprano was singing. She’s saying that our world is forgetting, I would say sort of compassion and truth and so on. And I totally agree with that. It’s not only the communists’ doing, it’s also the doing of our world. And your performance, you know what? It’s an enchanted break, I would say, from a world lost in materialism,” Mr. d’Ortoli said.
Ms. Aliouane was very moved by the spirituality of Shen Yun: “I was really extremely touched, I told myself that it was absolutely what we needed right now. And it was embodied like that in the performance, I found it fabulous, really it touched me infinitely, it touched my soul.”
“It’s something simply splendid, magnificent, and for me, it’s the message that is conveyed in this performance, it’s not just a performance where we see things, there’s something else behind it, there’s a message, and that’s touching,” said entrepreneur Hachemi Aliouane. “And I think it’s beautiful because we come to see a performance, but it speaks to us, it speaks to our world, and thank you.”
“I am joyful, but not with human joy, but with an exceptional joy that comes from above and that I express with difficulty, because it is difficult to express something perfectly with human words,” Mr. Mrugalski said.
“I feel elevated. That’s it. For me, culture has a purpose. It’s about lifting souls, lifting minds. And your performance is part of that, really,” Mr. d’Ortoli said.
The group will return to France in April for more than 10 performances in four cities.
NTD News, Aix-En-Provence, France.
