ATLANTA—IT Director for Alton Healthcare, Richard Powell, was full of admiration for the Shen Yun Performing Arts’ World Company’s opening performance at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, on the second day of the New Year.
“It’s not just beautiful, it’s spectacular,” he said.
Mr. Powell was enjoying watching the extravaganza with Holly Powell, who appreciated the music, including the Shen Yun Orchestra, solo musicians and singers.
“The music was beautiful and flawlessly performed,” she said. “The dancers move so gracefully. I’m not familiar with it, yet it’s wonderful to see … the little subtle movements. How people move together, it’s beautiful.”
Built on a 5,000-year-old divinely-inspired culture, China’s traditional values have been suppressed over the last 60 years of communist rule. Shen Yun revives those traditions in classical Chinese dance and music.
Shen Yun, based in New York, is four companies that launched its 2015 World Tour on Dec. 26, with a mission to revive these lost traditions for today’s audiences to enjoy.
“It is so pure,” Mr. Powell said. “We in the West have totally missed beauty. This is beauty. I don’t know how to … It’s incredible.”
He said five years ago he would not have been able to fully comprehend the spiritual depth of the performance.
He felt sorry for people who were not able to understand the inner meanings he saw. “I just wish more people would understand it.”
He felt it would be a missed opportunity if an audience member was merely entertained by Shen Yun.
“It would be pretty, but they wouldn’t understand the underneath, they wouldn’t understand the source of it, and the real spirituality of it.”
Sophisticated dance techniques, an orchestra joining instruments from both the East and West, beautiful costumes, and a stunning back drop—this is Shen Yun at first glance, the Shen Yun website explains.
But, the underlying principles such as benevolence and justice, propriety and wisdom, respect for the heavens, and divine retribution, all come to life, washing over the audience, the website continues. Originating from Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, these ideals are the essence of traditional Chinese culture.”
“I feel excited. It’s very exciting and very uplifting,” Mr. Powell said.
He said he had never thought of orange as a spiritual color before.
“But now that I’ve seen it, so many other things make sense. It’s beautiful.”
He said the power of Falun Dafa, an ancient form of meditation forbidden in China since 1999, came through the performance as well.
“I think one very interesting thing was the dragon, the silver dragon [The Fable of the Magic Brush], it had me in tears, the silver dragon had me in tears.”
Overall, Mr. Powell believed that the Shen Yun performance would be good for people, filled with “power, beauty and purity,” he said.
Reporting by Sally Sun and Raiatea Tahana-Reese
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. 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.
