MISSISSAUGA, Canada—Canadian publisher Olivier Felicio took in an afternoon performance of Shen Yun Performing Arts at Living Arts Centre on Sunday afternoon. It was the eve of the Chinese New Year, and Mr. Felicio was in for a special experience.
“It was fantastic, fantastic,” he said in an interview following the show.
President of Rive Gauche Media, Mr. Felicio is also the publisher and editor-in chief of The Canadian Jeweller Magazine and Viva Magazine. It was his second time seeing Shen Yun, and he enjoyed every moment of it.
Shen Yun, widely recognized as the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company, has set out to revive 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture, much of which has been lost under the present communist regime. New York-based, it currently has three companies touring simultaneously worldwide.
Mr. Felicio could sense there was something special about the Chinese culture presented by Shen Yun.
“The feeling of peace, the feeling of community, the feeling of humanity, the feeling of creation, that’s how I felt about it,” he said.
“There’s a lot of answers to human behaviour that you can find through those 5,000 years of history, and I felt that as well,” he added.
Throughout the ages, the Chinese have believed their culture to have been divinely inspired, and the three major belief-systems of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism are the base of much of that culture.
Mr. Felicio noticed this spirituality reflected in the show, which for him translated into a “feeling of connecting with another human being.” He felt that this was not only communicated through one piece, but rather through all of the elements combined.
“It was not one aspect. I couldn’t single out one thing. The whole thing was coordinated together to share that inspiring feeling,” he said.
One piece that particularly stood out for him was a dance called The Choice. In it, two close friends part ways following graduation—the young man joins the police and the young woman starts practicing the meditation practice Falun Dafa.
When the practice becomes outlawed in China, the young woman rushes in to defend fellow practitioners protesting on Tiananmen Square. There she comes face to face with the police, including her old friend, who forgoes his official duty to protect her and her friends.
Something about this piece struck a chord with Mr. Felicio.
“I understood everything,” he said. “All the emotion I understood. I understood the challenges, I understood the dilemmas, I understood that just with the gestures,” he said, adding that it gave him a feeling of peace.
He was also moved by Shen Yun’s digital backdrop, which the company’s website says is designed to complement all aspects of the performance, from the dance to the props, lighting, and costumes.
“The backdrop was fantastic. Actually while I was watching all this, I was just thinking of the technical aspect to coordinate and synchronize everything all together. I was focusing on the technical aspect, all the synchronization and so forth. That was impressive.”
With reporting by NTD Television and Madalina Hubert
The Shen Yun International Company, one of Shen Yun’s three equally large companies, will next perform in the Detroit Opera House, Detroit, through Jan. 29. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
