ROCHESTER, N.Y.—Joe Brucato, an award-winning songwriter, was just beginning to digest the Shen Yun Performing Arts show he and his wife, Shawna Malone, had taken in on Feb. 6, when he was asked for his thoughts. While he said he was still pondering the performance, he did agree to offer a preliminary response.
The first was that Shen Yun was “passionate, colorful, and very moving and entertaining at the same time.”
“Everything about it, we liked,” he said.
Mr. Brucato was awarded the Los Angeles Music Awards 1999-2000 male singer/songwriter of the year award; he was nominated as an outstanding male singer/songwriter the same year. He’s also the official singer/songwriter of the Young Global Leadership Foundation, and has had his music featured in television advertisements and a number of well-known television programs.
But going deeper about Shen Yun, Mr. Brucato said he would have to think about it. “Well, what I saw, I don’t have it all down pat right now. I'd like to see the [performance] again, to be honest with you.”
Shen Yun, based in New York, showcases classical Chinese dance and music.
But he did offer this insight: “There are so many things that come at you in this [performance]. Not only visually and aurally, with the music—the music was beautiful—but underlying all that, there’s this underlying subject matter, this deeper thing. A lot of Americans don’t know that—I don’t know that.”
What he thought it was essentially doing is bringing Chinese culture to people who are open to it, but do not know that much about it. “And I think that we were both moved, and we would like to get a closer understanding of what that’s all about, and I think that’s what they want to do,” he said.
He also made a point about the hope that he feels Shen Yun imparted. He felt the performance ends in a very positive way with hope. “It’s a universal hope,” and if the performance can “show hope for the Chinese culture, getting a better understanding about it, it’s a success. And it’s done through beauty and artistic things, instead of war. And the best thing art can do—whether it’s Chinese, American, European, South American, whatever it is—is to, without picking up a gun and shedding blood, influence more people in a positive, beautiful way. Am I right or am I wrong?”
The reporter agreed that Mr. Brucato was right.
“Are you excited?!” he then asked. “She is,” Mr. Brucato added, referring to his wife.
“I think they did an amazing job. They totally got it across,” said Ms. Malone, an esthetician.
Mr. Brucato remarked with humor: “I think this is the greatest interview you’ve ever gotten from two people after a play, yes or no?”
The reporter affirmed Mr. Brucato’s sentiment.
With reporting by Xinxin Teng and Matt Robertson
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.
