LAS VEGAS—New York Times bestselling author and former entertainment journalist Lorraine Zenka has enough experience in the entertainment industry to be able to appreciate a good production; and so when she saw Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Reynolds Theater on Feb. 23, she could tell that she had experienced something wonderful.
“I loved it; it was really great,” Ms. Zenka said.
“I thought everybody was really talented. The precision was wonderful; the production was wonderful with that screen in the back (digital backdrops); and the way people were coming onstage into kind of this grand universe practically was wonderful.”
Over the course of her career as an entertainment journalist, Ms. Zenka has written for a number of publications including the Los Angeles Times, Weekly World, and Mademoiselle, to name a just a few. She has also written a few books, including the New York Times bestseller Days of Our Lives: The Complete Family Album.
At the heart of Shen Yun is classical Chinese dance, an art form with thousands of years of history in China, evolved and refined over time from dynasty to dynasty. The New York-based dance company also features other aspects that add to the stunning beauty of its presentations, including a unique orchestra that combines traditional Chinese instruments with a Western orchestra, as well as animated digital backdrops.
Ms. Zenka had heard Chinese music before, but those performances could not be compared with Shen Yun.
“I’ve heard different Chinese instruments being played in different places, but none as beautifully or as pure as I’ve heard it tonight,” Ms. Zenka said. “It was fabulous; I haven’t seen anything like it.”
The production quality and program arrangement impressed Ms. Zenka as well.
“The direction was wonderful because each vignette, every scene, every story was never so long that you got tired or you just started to look at the colors… you really just [get] absorbed in it,” Ms. Zenka said.
“The timing was perfect, and the blend was wonderful.”
Ms. Zenka also praised the vocal performances, performed by Shen Yun’s award-winning vocalists who sing Chinese lyrics using the bel canto style.
“I can’t say enough ... about it; I was really delighted,” she said.
Art, Ms. Zenka said, is when you can make something difficult look easy, and Shen Yun artists “did that, because I know all that physicality must take a toll on them.”
“They take all of that and make it a beautiful art,” she said.
“I was aware of the whole [performance] being brought together beautifully,” she concluded.
Reporting by Rusong Lu
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.
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.
