UNIVERSITY PARK, Ill.—John Huston, trial lawyer in Chicago, was delighted by
Shen Yun at the Center for Performing Arts at Governors State University in Illinois on April 26.
“Precision, grace, humanity, beauty—it’s all there,” said Huston.
Based in New York,
Shen Yun Performing Arts is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company. Along with folk dances and solo performances, the production depicts story-based pieces that
tell tales from ancient times to the present.
China was once known as “The Land of the Divine” and
Shen Yun presents this culture by drawing upon the Middle Kingdom’s Buddhist and Daoist philosophies. The performance often includes spiritually uplifting messages, according to the company’s website.
“Everybody has a sense of a spiritual part of them and this brings out the Chinese spiritual side, which we all know has been there for years. We’ve read about it. We’ve studied it and now we’re experiencing it. It’s beautiful,” Huston said.
Huston was impressed with the grace and beauty of
classical Chinese dance. With its flips and gentle elegance, classical Chinese dance is the most athletic and expressive art form in the world.
“It’s classic beauty. It’s a flowing beauty. It’s grace,” he said.
“Beauty is obviously there and part of it, in color and life, in the midst of violence … it’s part of the movement of the dance. The dance is part of the beauty.”
Shen Yun presents story-based dances depicting the persecution of
Falun Dafa, also called Falun Gong, a meditation and spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a persecution against the practice in 1999, and adherents have since been subjected to unprecedented imprisonment, torture, and abuse.
One dance piece depicts the state-orchestrated crime of forced organ harvesting from Falun Dafa prisoners of conscience in China, part of the CCP’s persecution campaign.
Huston commented that ‘humanity’ and ‘beauty’ were themes that resonated with him from watching
Shen Yun.
“Humanity … was that message that was there, that the communists are suppressing this, it’s sad, but it’s flourishing here, so good for them,” he said.
“What [
Shen Yun] created is truly beautiful and something that is worth seeing over and over by everybody.”
Reporting by Stacey Tang and Jennifer Schneider.
