Artists ‘Floored’ by Shen Yun

“I have to say, very seldom [do] we get goose bumps all over our body coming out of the performance. And we’re still walking this off, and don’t even know what … hit us. Just amazing beauty,” Mr. Wojtek Pilczynski said.
Artists ‘Floored’ by Shen Yun
5/2/2013
Updated:
10/24/2015
<img class="size-large wp-image-375855" title="Katrzyna_Kociomyk_and_Wojtek_Pilczynski_at_Shen_Yun" src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/Katrzyna_Kociomyk_and_Wojtek_Pilczynski_at_Shen_Yun-601x450.jpg" alt="" width="590" height="442"/>

LOUISVILLE, Ky.—“We saw it and we are completely floored,” said Polish art promoter Wojtek Pilczynski after seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts. “This is amazing. Guys, amazing show. Amazing, amazing. We grew up on ballet; we grew up on classical dancing, coming from Poland, from Warsaw. We saw Baryshnikov; I met him personally. And I’ve been just amazed by how beautiful, elegant, and graceful this show was,” said Mr. Pilczynski of the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company.

Through music and dance, New York-based Shen Yun brings to life 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese civilization. Principally through classical Chinese dance, legends, myths, values, and even history are presented in short dances and songs.

Attending with Mr. Pilczynski at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts on May 1 was his friend and artist, Katrzyna Kociomyk. Both were mesmerized by the performance.

“Kasha graduated with honors from one of the best art schools in Europe, ... I’ve been promoting art for 23 years,” Mr. Pilczynski said.

Mr. Pilczynski explained that it was because Ms. Kociomyk’s was going to donate some of her paintings to a local art gallery so that students could study, she was graciously given tickets to Shen Yun. “So we received the tickets completely by accident, by the grace of God or just kindness,” he said.

Even just seeing Shen Yun’s ads inspired Ms. Kociomyk.

“Before the show came to Louisville, Kasha was fascinated with the movement of the dancers, and she was very interested in painting the figures because she paints beautiful figures: ballet dancers, flamingo dancers—so [she was] just truly amazed by the colors and grace and beauty it.

After seeing the show, “I’m becoming very inspired,” Ms. Kociomyk said. “So now, for a few days, a few weeks, I’m going to think: How I can put ideas which I have now, after this show, on my canvases?”

“I’m sure that it’s going to be, I don’t know, a series of paintings, a painting. For sure, I feel inside, that I have to somehow express this on the canvas,” she said.

“This freedom, this beauty, this pure beauty and free spirit, it was something amazing. This is something what I would like to transfer somehow [to] what I do, … but I have to think very carefully through this, but there is something for sure I have to put on my canvas,” she said.

Shen Yun is a company dedicated to resuscitating traditional Chinese arts, after they were nearly destroyed under years of communist rule.

Both Ms. Kociomyk and Mr. Pilczynski came from Poland, which was previously a communist country. Thus, it wasn’t just the aesthetics of the show that touched them, but the yearning for freedom of expression that they saw in Shen Yun.

“I think for us, because of our background, it was very touching on many different levels. It was not just an esthetic thing for us, it was much deeper,” Mr. Pilczynski

“To see how young people are trying to bring the original culture and share it with the rest of the world. So it’s amazing throughout,” he said.

“Beautiful, amazing pictures,” Ms. Kociomyk said. “Also, this feel of freedom, of free expression. Because what Wojtek mentioned, I remember also times in Poland when people couldn’t freely express themselves. When everything—our spirit—I can’t say in English—just squished.”

The pair often attend shows together to inspire their work. “We see a lot of shows. To walk out of the show and say, you know, we have to memorize this on canvas. We have to memorize it. We have to share it with the world in our form of expression, is just phenomenal,” Mr. Pilczynski said.

“I hope you inspire more artists in different media, but especially painters, and hopefully sculptors as well, because what [Shen Yun] does is spectacular, it’s meaningful, …. And I think everybody in the world should see what they do because it’s amazing. We are just floored,” he said.

“I have to say, very seldom [do] we get goose bumps all over our body coming out of the performance. And we’re still walking this off, and don’t even know what … hit us. Just amazing beauty,” Mr. Pilczynski said.

Reporting by NTD Television and Sharon Kilarski

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.

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.