SEATTLE—Nicholas Jurus said he'd been waiting four years to attend Shen Yun Performing Arts. “I didn’t want to waste another moment,” he said. “I knew it was coming—I planned the moment that I saw it back out here.”
On Friday April 8, the Marion Oliver McCaw Hall hosted Shen Yun’s 10th year of performances in Seattle. And Mr. Jurus, who writes screenplays and plans to publish his first novel this year, said he attended at the perfect time. “I’ve been wanting to do this for years,” he said.
Through music and dance, each Shen Yun performance presents theatergoers an immersion into a world of beauty and energy, a world where mind, body, and spirit harmonize into one. And along with Shen Yun’s array of vision, sound, and storytelling, vibrant colors and a digital backdrop help round the stage into a complete sensory experience.
According to Shen Yun’s website, “A Shen Yun performance features the world’s foremost classically trained dancers, a unique orchestra blending East and West, and dazzling animated backdrops—together creating one spectacular performance.”
Despite Mr. Jurus calling Shen Yun an example of “opportune-perfect” to “get a real taste, a flavor” for dance and culture, he said that the evening’s essential messages could not be experienced by the senses alone. “I feel like they’re trying to reach out, and I feel like they’re trying to get a hold of people’s hearts,” he said. “Because your heart’s much stronger than your mind.”
“They’re kind of reaching out this way. That’s how it felt to me. That’s the story that I felt is behind this, and I think it’s a beautiful story,” he added. “Very touching.”
Something else caught Mr. Jurus’ attention—the situation between the performance company and the China of today. While it brings to life the true culture of Chinese civilization dating back 5,000 years, Shen Yun cannot perform in mainland China, where the communist regime has brought traditional culture to the brink of extinction.
Mr. Jurus noted that not only is seeing Shen Yun a metaphor for the Chinese people, as well as their heritage, to return home, but that it also imparted to him a unique sense of returning to a long-lost land.
“If you imagine when you’re away from home, and you have this feeling of wanting to be back home, and you know what home is. It touches you in your heart and your soul, and you long to be there,” he said. “That’s the feeling that I have.”
Mr. Jurus concluded that he wishes more and more people will attend the performance. “Beautiful story, absolutely beautiful,” he said. “I felt the depth of the story was ‘hope’ for all of us. I feel that was the greatest message.”
Reporting by Michael Green and Michael Fitzgerald
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit Shen Yun Performing Arts.
Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
