WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—Marjorie Faver, a former ballet dancer, saw Shen Yun for the first time at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts on April 16. “I’m absolutely thrilled,” she said.
Seeing the Shen Yun dancers was especially thrilling for her. “Their feet were beautiful … their arabesques, their attitudes, everything that they did. They walked like they were gliding on water. Their precision—it’s just amazing, absolutely amazing,” she said.
Ms. Faver used to be with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company and graduated from the performing arts high school in Manhattan with a major in dance. “I’ve retired from ballet, but I do help out with the Harid Conservatory down here and the Boca Ballet,” she said.
The Shen Yun performance left her “with a very light feeling,” she said. “Believe it or not, I can see the [dancers’] scarves floating in front of my eyes. It’s just a wonderful feeling. I just really, really was taken up with this.”
“Their arms and their costumes were absolutely marvelous—their precision, their altogetherness,” Ms. Faver said of the dancers.
She would like to tell the performers, “You are the greatest—talented, beautiful dancers.”
“Chinese dance is at the heart of what Shen Yun does,” the Shen Yun website states. “Known for its incredible flips and spins, and its gentle elegance, it is one of the most rigorous and expressive art forms in the world.”
Shen Yun features classical Chinese dance, folk, and ethnic dance. Through dance, the artists tell stories of the past and present and convey beliefs and values from China’s 5,000 years of civilization.
Ms. Faver was also impressed by the erhu, an ancient Chinese string instrument: “I’ve never seen that before, and that was really a wonderful sound. It’s just like [you’re] sitting, and you’re just floating somewhere. It’s just marvelous. It’s the first time I’ve seen that.”
She found the total effect of the performance “very light and floating.” Having the opera singer, the erhu soloist, the drums, and the dance all in one performance “was absolutely astonishing,” she said.
This was the first time she had seen Shen Yun, and she couldn’t wait to take her granddaughters, both of whom do ballet, to see Shen Yun when it performs again in New York.
“I’m thrilled, really thrilled, and I will definitely see [Shen Yun] here again next year.” She said that when Shen Yun returns to West Palm Beach, “I will have more friends coming with me.”
Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company, which is currently on tour in Florida, will be at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Friday–Sunday, April 18–20.
Reporting by NTD Television and Louise Rothman
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.
