SYDNEY, Australia—The Parade Theatre in Kensington Sydney was packed for the opening show of the New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts show on Sunday, April 19. The audience was bathed in the beauty and profundity of the 5,000-year-old Chinese culture.
It was the matinee session, and the first of eight Sydney performances.
Ms. Crowe, a ballet teacher, was in the audience. She said that Shen Yun was something she hadn’t seen before.
Regarding the classical Chinese dance presented in the performances, Ms.Crowe thought that it was “very intricate.”
She noted that classical Chinese dance had unique moves.
Classical Chinese dance has its own complete set of training methods in foundational skills, a strict regimen for perfecting bearing and form, and means of training for skill sets such as jumps, turns, and flips, as well as extremely demanding aerial techniques, culminating in an enormous dance system.
Ms. Crowe teaches ballet to children from the age of three up to thirteen and thinks they would enjoy Shen Yun.
“I think it’s very colourful and the music is very interesting. It’s something you don’t see in Australia.”
Mr. Widerberg accompanied Ms. Crowe. He said, “What I liked was the various styles of dancing and the obvious … physicality of the people and their technique—really good.”
The deeper resonances of traditional Chinese culture imbue a dancer’s movements with rich expressive power. The dancer is thus capable of not only portraying a given figure’s disposition or mood, but even the vivid expressions unique to a certain age, whatever the land or time.
