Shen Yun wrapped up 13 sold-out performances over the past weekend.
The performances at Lincoln Center ended with thundering applause. Audience members came out with smiles on their faces.
“The whole production was fantastic. Beginning you got to begin with the dance. The dancing was superb, was fantastic, very energetic, very lively. The dancers were fantastic. They were all dancing together, the movements were very good,” said Ted Bodnar, who is the principal at Bodnar Architecture, PC. “The artistry, the music, the choreography. Bravo, they did a fantastic job. Beautiful, beautiful show to watch.”
Mr. Bodnar and his fiancee Terry Mucha used to be performers. After seeing Shen Yun for the first time, they couldn’t stop praising the artists’ skills.
“I just thought the show was incredible. Dance-wise [the] choreography was incredible, but the togetherness, the perfection, everybody dances so beautifully together,” said Ms. Mucha, the former executive director of Ukrainian Shumka Dancers. “There were so many times that we had tears in our eyes because everything was so beautifully done. It was a wonderful show. And I’m so glad to have traveled all the way from Canada to New York to see the show.”
“And I used to be a dancer, [a] long time ago, Ukrainian dancer, and I can appreciate the difficulty with the choreography that they managed and incredible,” she added. “And dancing with the costumes that they had to deal with. And it was amazing. Just, they did a wonderful, wonderful job.”
Mr. Bodnar, who used to be a baritone, said he really liked the tenor Thê Tùng Lâm.
Patinka Kopec is a violin teacher at the Manhattan School of Music. She has seen Shen Yun multiple times. “It’s beautiful. Beautiful, I find this music beautiful,” she said. “And there is the lute [erhu]. It’s like a violin with a beautiful vibrato.”
“I’m very impressed with how warm and beautiful the music is. Really beautiful. I hope that I hear more singing.”
Ms. Kopec is also a co-director and teacher of the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Project and one of the founding artists of the Perlman Music Program.
“I’ve never seen a show like that in the United States of America. So that to me, is very visual. That’s why I wanted my granddaughters who are with me … I said ‘you’ve got to see this.'”
Theatergoers said, on top of the artistic values that Shen Yun brings on stage, Shen Yun’s mission to revive Chinese culture before communism struck their hearts.
“I think the message is the spirituality I think community I think sort of this divine intervention that we sort of see all throughout the performance, how it begins and how it ends. It’s very different than what we’re fed about communist China,” said Anne Sanford, who is a designer and the founder LURKshop, a perfume company.
“The parts about the communism suppressing the art, being Ukrainian, and we have been being suppressed by Russian communism in our country, the fact that communism suppresses art and the truth and music in your country that hit me pretty deeply in my heart,” said Mr. Bodnar.
He hopes that Shen Yun will keep spreading the message to the world and revive its culture in China.
“Bravo. Fantastic. Keep it going, I mean, as an artist, one artist with another bunch of artists. Keep it going, keep doing what’s truly are for your culture to represent, your culture in your country, and your art, 100%, you are fantastic performers. It’s a fantastic production. Keep doing it. Please.”
Shen Yun will give five more performances in Purchase, New York this week.
NTD News, New York
