NEW YORK—Corporate finance professional Ali Abbas attended the Shen Yun Performing Arts opening performance at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater on April 20.
It was his third time taking in the sights and sounds of Shen Yun.
“It’s always a pleasure to come back,” he said. “[Shen Yun] just reinforces a part of the Chinese culture that a lot of folks don’t know about.”
Shen Yun was created with the vision of reviving the divinely inspired culture of China. For thousands of years, Buddhist, Taoist and other spiritual disciplines inspired Chinese culture.
Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party has treated these divinely inspired traditions as a threat to its existence. They created systematic campaigns to eradicate the culture, from the Cultural Revolution to today’s persecution of Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese spiritual practice based on Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance, that has been persecuted since July 1999.
“This time around the spiritual message was more profound for me. The whole Falun Gong movement and the return to the Chinese roots of their own spirituality is very profound.
“Spirituality is something very natural to all civilizations. That is what really makes the message very familiar to people who are on the spiritual path and want to live their life free and be able to have a spiritual experience.”
Khadijah Stoler, a payroll analyst, loved Shen Yun’s performance. “It was just gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.”
Ms. Stoler, who has worked with apparel, felt that the colors and textures of the costumes worked incredibly well with the dances.
Ms. Stoler also enjoyed learning more about traditional Chinese culture, and the root of dance. She enjoyed the fluidity of the dancers and found it fascinating that acrobatics actually comes from classical Chinese dance.
“I think it’s just a beautiful experience to share with people of traditional Chinese culture,” she said. “To really understand that a lot of things that we give ourselves credit for [are] actually borrowed from the Chinese culture. I think we could all benefit from viewing Shen Yun.”
Adam Klugman, award-winning creative director, felt Shen Yun Performing Arts was “extremely well done.”
“The costumes are beautiful. The dancers are incredible. It was really quite a spectacle.”
By NTD and Epoch Times Staff
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
Shen Yun Performing Arts is performing at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center through April 28.
The 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.
