MELBOURNE, Australia—“I really love it,” said Tibor Pelsoczy after experiencing the beauty of Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Arts Centre Melbourne, State Theatre, on Feb. 25.

Shen Yun has classical Chinese dance at its heart but also includes folk and ethnic dance as well as story based dance. A blended orchestra of traditional Chinese and classical Western instruments, state of the art digital backdrops along with solo instrumental and singing performances complete the Shen Yun experience.

Mr. Pelsoczy is an author and classically trained dancer from Hungary. He was very keen to bring his family to see Shen Yun because of his love for classical dance.

“That’s why the family had to see these beautiful dancers, they’re just fantastic,” he said.

Mr. Pelsoczy appreciated that classical Chinese dance incorporates so many different skills and techniques. He particularly enjoyed the way the performers used the movements of the dance to express aspects of the Chinese culture.

“You see the beautiful movement, they’re just fantastic, how they use their arms. They’re just so fluent and it’s beautiful. I really love it,” he said.

“It’s different from the western [dance], … It’s like they really, really express themselves, their ethnic [traditions]. You feel that it’s from China, you see they’re really using their actual Chinese origin.”

There are three components to Chinese classical dance- form, technique and bearing, or Yun. Yun is the component that makes this style of dance unique, as it is the expression of the inner emotional world of the dancer represented through the motion of the dance. It is this inner meaning that drives the body into motion, enabling full expression to be achieved.

‘Dancing was Spectacular’

Ballet dancer Miss Alyssa Sherianz was at the performance with her parents and sister. She said she really liked the techniques they used and was inspired to learn them.

Mr. Sherianz said the family had really enjoyed Shen Yun. He said a friend had recommended Shen Yun to them and they wanted their children to experience something different.

“The dancing was spectacular, Very different to what we’ve seen before, it was really good,” he said.

He was also impressed with the interactive digital backdrop. He thought it was spectacular, saying, “I haven’t seen anything like that before.”

A vibrant and thrilling performance that has been inspiring audiences all over the world since 2006, Shen Yun mission is to celebrate and revive traditional Chinese culture while taking theatre goers on a journey through 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.

Mr. Sherianz was happy to learn more about the rich cultural heritage of China. He said, “[These are] things that we don’t know about, or we don’t see a lot of. So to learn about these things, it is great.”

He would recommend the show to everyone, and is looking forward to seeing the show again upon its return.

‘It was just awesome!’

Creche supervisor, Analiese Fort, was thrilled to attend the opening night of Shen Yun in Melbourne.

“It was just awesome!” she said.

Shen Yun was conceived in 2006 by a group of talented Chinese artists who wanted to revive and celebrate China’s 5,000-year-old divinely-inspired culture, all but destroyed under 65 years of the communist rule.

Ms. Fort said she has many Chinese friends, and her brother spent some time working in China and so is well aware of the oppression happening there today.

“[Shen Yun] demonstrated the compassion of people, and to liberate people from the oppression, …. I thought it was such a lovely, lovely way to express it through dance,” she said.

She was touched by the dancers’ ability to tell stories and to express emotion through movement alone. And felt Shen Yun conveyed a message of hope to the world.

‘Everyone should see Shen Yun at least once’

The Aravinthan family were also at the Shen Yun performance.

Vimal Arivanthan, who works in the information technology industry, said that he enjoyed learning about the different ethnicities that live in China, and that each culture has its own style and type of dance.

He appreciated that the people in the past lived so close to nature and they were very gentle and very smooth – softly spoken and with a different type of life.

“It is not like the very busy life that we are leading. So in the past they had time and their priorities were different.”

He felt that everyone should see Shen Yun at least once.

His daughter, dancer and physiotherapist Avi Aravinthan also loved the performance.

“It was great, it was the colours and the poses and everything are beautiful.”

Miss Aravinthan felt that Shen Yun was conveying a moral message that people could connect with through their essential human nature.

“We’re maybe losing touch with that side of things, with all this technology and things like that so it’s always good to reconnect with the essential human values.”

The Shen Yun website explains, “Principles such as benevolence and justice, propriety and wisdom, respect for the heavens, and divine retribution, all come to life, washing over the audience.”

“It’s beautiful; I really did not even have…an insight into what to expect it was just flowing and really just very graceful and elegant. Amazing!”

Reporting by NTD Television, Lucy Liu and Kathy McWilliams

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.

Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reaction since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006