“It was very original to see it for the first time,” said Chater, CFO of merchant services for a bank. “Having seen the excerpts, I found it very interesting to see the different dances, the way it was performed. The differences between the classical dances of marrying classical with folklore was particularly well performed.”
New York-based Shen Yun’s mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture through the arts, and each two-hour production includes ancient myths and legends, glimpses into the various dynasties, an introduction to the various regions and ethnicities of the vast land, and more. The music and choreography is composed anew each season, and Chater caught a performance on March 6, 2020, at Lincoln Center in New York.
“It’s fascinating,” Chater said. “It’s an extremely good show. It’s beautifully done, it’s very poetic, and it’s very nicely performed and very interesting to see for the first time.”
For Chater, this moved his heart, because it a worrying thing to realize is continuing in the world.
Amazing Story of Culture
The expressive moments of the dancers struck a poetic note for others in the audience as well: Darren Skomorowsky and Prani Kromi were moved by the beauty of the dances on stage.
“Oh it’s absolutely amazing; the colors, the show—it’s like a diamond. It’s got a lot of facets,” said Skomorowsky, a director of sales and marketing. “There’s a lot of movement and color, and it’s like poetry on stage.”
Kromi gave praise to each of these facets, from the costumes to the choreography of the stories and the orchestra playing below the stage, and added how she impressed she was. As for the dancers, she said it was more than dance: “It’s like flying, actually.”
Skomorowsky pointed to “Water Sleeves,” a graceful piece where the female dancers’ costumes feature long, long sleeves they catch and release in waves like water.
“It grabbed my heart,” he said. “The colors are amazing, the movements are just absolutely fabulous, it’s so fluid.”
“They’re amazing. You can tell they’ve dedicated a lot of their life to the movements on stage. It’s like watching water move across the stage, it’s amazing,” he said.
More than just an incredible display of dance, Skomorowsky and Kromi felt Shen Yun was getting across an amazing story: one about the divinely inspired civilization of ancient China, and Shen Yun’s revival of this once-lost traditional culture.
“I think it’s an amazing story that’s being told. I think it’s an expression not only of the art, but the culture that it comes from,” Skomorowsky said.
