HOUSTON—Like many audience members, Amanda Herring had wanted to see Shen Yun Performing Arts for years, but it was more than a matter of scheduling.
“I’ve got some health issues, so I don’t get to do a lot like this, but I was determined no matter how I felt,” said Mrs. Herring at the Jones Hall for the Performing Arts on Dec. 26, where she finally made it to a performance with her husband, Bobby Herring, president of a nonprofit organization.
“I wanted so bad to come see this, so I am, like, fighting for this presentation, and I absolutely love it. I’m grateful to have made it,” she said.
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, and Mrs. Herring had seen trailers of the gravity-defying and elegant dance form. Though it wasn’t an art form she normally would have gone to lengths to see, she felt compelled to witness Shen Yun in person.
“I’m like, this athleticism is unbelievable. And it is. It’s just amazing what the human body can do with discipline and a lot of work,” she said.
Mr. Herring agreed, impressed with the dance and what it meant.
“It’s something special,” said Mr. Herring.
As founder and president of Eyes on Me, a nonprofit organization that mentors and serves families in underserved communities, Mr. Herring said he could relate to what Shen Yun artists have been through—what it felt like to be driven by faith and mission, venturing where others fear to tread in order to serve others.
“They said that they couldn’t perform this particular show in China,” Mr. Herring explained. “So I see that this is very faith-driven, and it shows me that they’re overcoming [adversity] by bringing it to the United States and being able to do it here.”
Indeed, Shen Yun—which has a mission to share with audiences “China before communism”—is banned from China today by the Chinese communist regime.
In the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 75 years in power, it has launched violent revolutions nearly every decade, with the primary aim of destroying any trace of the traditional Chinese culture that was formed over 5,000 years.
Shen Yun’s mission is to revive the five millennia of Chinese civilization, said to be divinely inspired, through the arts.
As a creative person who has dabbled in producing performances, Mr. Herring said he could also understand the sheer scale of a Shen Yun production.
This includes music composed anew each year and performed by Shen Yun’s own orchestras incorporating ancient Chinese instruments and melodies; the millennia-old art form of classical Chinese dance which Shen Yun has pioneered; ethnic and folk dances from China’s 50-some ethnic minority groups; a patented digital backdrop that extends the stage infinitely; and more. Each year’s production is different from the last, with couture costumes based on traditional ancient dress, new choreography, new compositions, new storylines, and so on.
Underlying the high-value production were the values and virtues of traditional Chinese culture, which resonated with Mr. Herring.
“Beautiful art form coming together with a message and holding true to the virtue of faith,” he said.
They were themes he felt relevant and needed today.
“I mean, truthfulness is what sets you free,” he said. “And compassion, and forbearance. If we ever lose that in society, then we’re in trouble. So we have to keep that before us. And so I see that they promote that.”
“We’re in a constant battle of good and evil. We see it in every sector of society,” he said. “But there’s always that hope that people will come together as good arises. And so I see obviously that in the show, and I see it in our world today. But at the end, we know good prevails.”
Reporting by Frank Liang and Catherine Yang.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
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