“We have so many different cultures and traditions; it’s just a wonderful thing that I can come in and enjoy the traditions of the Chinese people. I can enjoy the tradition of different kinds of ethnic groups,” Monopoli said at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Feb. 15, 2020.
He and his wife RoseAnn enjoyed a much-awaited performance by the New York-based dance and music company. Though the culture they were introduced to was ancient and foreign, they left with a renewed appreciation for the traditional Chinese culture as well as their American freedoms.
“I thought it was excellent. It was very sensational, very colorful, very different,” said Monopoli, who owned several businesses before he retired.
“The way they did that was really interesting—it looked like it was real,” Monopoli said.
Learning that Shen Yun cannot perform in China, where the ruling communist regime is opposed to the traditional culture, Monopoli felt it was sad, but took hope and joy in the stories and themes Shen Yun presented as a revival.
“That was a sad part, to know that in some part of the world the tremendous great country as big as China had that kind of persecution among its own people,” Monopoli said. He saw in the performance the beauty of the countryside in the various ethnic and folk dance vignettes, and the heart of the people.
Tasteful and Inspirational
Also in the audience was the Cook family, who found the stories inspirational and the art well executed as they took in Shen Yun at the Mahaffey Theater on Saturday afternoon.
Jeff Cook and Christina Roach Cook are both TV producers, and very much enjoyed the way Shen Yun artists used visuals to tell unique stories.
“I thought it was very well done, and they had some very good production value to it,” said Jeff. “I particularly like the colors, the vibrant look of it, and the variety—a lot of multiple dancing, and there were some individual things, so it was nice to have a wide range of things.”
“There is a lot of history,” Jeff said. “There’s a lot of culture and a lot [of] good things and bad things that we have to deal with, and there’s a lot of things that kind of go unspoken, but kind of expressed in what they showed here. It was done very tastefully, which I found inspirational.”
“It can be challenging, but also understanding that from the people’s perspective, there’s always a struggle but there’s always a positive side to it and trying to look for the better things in life,” he said.
One aspect of hope in these stories is the people’s faith, the depiction in which Jeff found universal elements.
“It’s something to look on to and believe in,” he said, regardless of which religion you believe.
