BUENOS AIRES—Mrs. Susana Gimenez, famous TV host of an Argentine television show named in her honor, called the performance by Shen Yun Performing Arts “Marvelous, marvelous.” She attended the performance at the prestigious Teatro Ópera Citi.
New York-based Shen Yun presents colorful and exhilarating performances of classical Chinese dance and music. On its 2013 World Tour and with three different companies performing around the globe, the Shen Yun International Company debuted this year in Buenos Aires.
“One must really be in deep concentration to do everything that they do because it’s incredible,” said Mrs. Gimenez. She was surprised and delighted to experience the classical and traditional Chinese culture.
Perhaps the biggest Argentian entertainment celebrity, Mrs. Gimenez has had an amazing career in Argentina since the 1960s. She has appeared in many movies, theater shows, and of course, her well-known Susana Gimenez television show.
“I loved knowing it is classical Chinese dance,” said Mrs. Gimenez. “It’s something fabulous.”
Shen Yun’s website says that, “a performance by Shen Yun is a presentation of traditional Chinese culture as it once was: a study in grace, wisdom, and the virtues distilled from the five millennia of Chinese civilization.”
Mrs. Gimenez said that the digital backdrop gave her a view of “incredible places.”
The animated backdrops transport the audiences to another world, and the dancers perform amidst blossoming landscapes, deep forests, Mongolian prairies, or celestial paradises, according to Shen Yun’s website.
“I am very content to have seen it, truly,” said Mrs. Gimenez.
She said she found the entire performance a work of art and that the dancers must be very young in order to perform the tumbling techniques found in classical Chinese dance.
“I loved it,” said Mrs. Gimenez.
Currently, Shen Yun, which has the mission to revive the essence and virtues of traditional Chinese culture, is not allowed to perform in China because of the country’s communist regime.
Mrs. Gimenez said the the Chinese Communist Party has no right to prohibit Chinese culture, “which is thousands-of-years-old. Everyone in the world should watch this, in China too.”
“They would love it. I don’t understand why they prohibit art,” she said, adding that it’s strange for a government to prohibit the ancient arts.
The Chinese Communist Party has Marxist-atheist ideology and believes that people must “fight with heaven, fight with earth, fight with each other” and focuses on “class struggle.” It has used the arts in China as a propaganda tool for the past 60-plus years.
Traditional Chinese culture, however, stems from the Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian faiths, and believes in “principles such as benevolence and justice, propriety and wisdom, respect for the heavens, and divine retribution,” according to Shen Yun’s website.
Mrs. Gimenez said that Argentinians shouldn’t miss it. “It is something different. We are so used to always watching the same type of musicals. It is something that can’t be missed,” she said.
Mrs. Gimenez said that she immediately bought her tickets after watching a television ad for Shen Yun: “When I saw the ad, I was running on my treadmill which has a television. I saw it and said, “I have to go,” she said.
“It’s something divine,” Mrs. Gimenez said.
Reporting by Manuel Pascual and Kelly Ni.
New York-based Shen Yun has three companies that tour the world each year on a mission to revive 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
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