AUSTIN, Texas—Matteus Levell, co-founder of health center Vital Switch, had an enlightening night at The Long Center for the Performing Arts seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts in Houston, Dec. 27.
“There’s a real beauty in with the dancing. It’s very soft and flowing,” Mr. Levell said. “It felt very free and flowing, and open, and really conveyed a sort of beauty.”
Mr. Levell noted that the softness he saw in the classical Chinese dance performed wasn’t an element usually associated with the culture.
Indeed, Shen Yun isn’t a show that can be seen in China today. The New York-based company revives 5,000 years of a divinely inspired culture through music and dance.
According to Mr. Levell, those traditional values showed clearly in the art. Mr. Levell, who has a background in theater and acting having studied at the Actors Centre in Australia and Macquarie University in Sydney Australia, paid attention to the bearing of the dancers.
Mr. Levell said there was a softness the dancers embodied, and it was an internalized and receptive culture, in contrast to Western culture.
But the dancers expressed a wide range of emotion as well, Mr. Levell said, particularly joyfulness. The divinely inspired culture was further enhanced by the digital backdrop, which took the audience on a journey from celestial palaces to Buddhist temples.
“It felt otherworldly, so there was a sense that we had the normal world here and there was the spirit world that was encompassed by the backdrop,” Mr. Levell said. “It was nice. They were flying in clouds. There was a sense of spirituality that was passed as well.”
The spirituality of the Chinese culture in Shen Yun’s performance was freeing, and a part of life, Mr. Levee observed.
He said that Shen Yun transmits a sense that spirituality is a lived phenomena. “People have an experiential sense of spirituality instead of it just being some belief. It’s like an experience.”
Reporting by Lily Setoh and Catherine Yang
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit Shen Yun Performing Arts.
The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
