Health Care Consultant Enjoys Shen Yun’s Energy

“It’s very, very novel for me,” Franco Ferraro said of the Shen Yun performance at the Cadillac Palace on Saturday evening, May 11.
Health Care Consultant Enjoys Shen Yun’s Energy
5/12/2013
Updated:
8/14/2015

CHICAGO—“It’s very, very novel for me,” Franco Ferraro said of the Shen Yun performance at the Cadillac Palace on Saturday evening, May 11.

It was the first time Mr. Ferraro had seen Shen Yun, the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company.

Shen Yun’s mission is to bring to life, through dance and music, the beauty, splendor, and values of the traditional, divinely inspired Chinese culture.

“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,” the Shen Yun website states.

“I like the Chinese culture the way that they are presenting [it],” said Mr. Ferraro, a health care consultant. “I like the energy, and I like all the messages they are providing us through this [performance],” he said of Shen Performing Arts New York Company, one of Shen Yun’s three companies.

“Chinese dance is at the heart of what Shen Yun does. 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,” according to the Shen Yun website.

Shen Yun is also known for its use of colors in the dancers’ costumes, its unique digital backdrops, the combination of Western and Eastern instruments in the orchestral music, and its award-winning vocal soloists.

Margherita Ferraro, on the administrative staff for the Italian Consulate, liked the colors of the performance the best. She also liked the female dancers: “I like the girls. They are really pretty. I like just the way they move, the way they move [their] feet in particular without moving the body. It’s very different.”

Mr. Ferraro remarked on the dance When Shaolin Monks Protected the Emperor. “The Shaolin section was really gorgeous,” he said. The dance tells the legend of the soon-to-be ruler of the Tang Dynasty and the Shaolin monks—how it came to be that they are allowed to eat meat, which is usually a taboo food for monks.

“You need to be calm, relaxed, and think about yourself. Forget for a second the life around you, which is much too stressful, and enjoy life,” Mr. Ferraro said, reflecting on the evening’s experience.

Reporting by Xiao Chen and Cat Rooney

Shen Yun Performing Arts, based in New York, tours the world on a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.

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.