WELLINGTON, New Zealand—“That was amazing inspiration,” said Wellington fashion designer and company owner, Amanda Compton. Ms. Compton attended the global sensation New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts at the St. James Theatre.
It was an unbelievable experience for Ms. Compton who had been accompanied to the evening performance on April 14, by Cameron Stewart, a student of architecture.
“Watching [the performance] for some of my clothing, I was like, I love that, I love that I love that,” said Ms. Compton. Ms. Compton was formerly a dancer and owned a dance company. She presently owns the fashion business, Lady Blue.
Shen Yun is a classical Chinese dance and music company that is reviving 5 millennia of authentic traditional Chinese culture. The company’s mission is to bring back the beauty, goodness and spirituality of Chinese culture as it was in the pre-communist era. Shen Yun can be seen in most countries but has been banned in China.
Ms. Compton was overwhelmed by the costumes worn by the dancers.
“Oh, my goodness they were incredible, the colours, the design, how the sleeves, …How they flow and the mix of colours. It was so bright … the sequins and the glitter. Just everything about it –inspirational and just how [the costumes] sat on [the dancers]. And the flow was really important, especially for a stage show, but you can see how that can replicate in everyday life as well,” she said.
“Just wow! What a show! And so many favourite performances. They’d do one and you would go, that’s a favourite and the next one would come on and you’d go, no that’s my favourite. And then the next one. Actually, there [are] just so many competing favourites.”
As a former dancer, Ms. Compton was able to comment on the intricacies of the dance moves.
“So, I appreciate the difficulty and the complexity of the turns and the flexibility and those triple pirouettes and arabesque turns and all the flips and … . ”
“Those flips, leaps, when they’re doing more than one at a time, that’s not easy to do. If you haven’t done dance, you don’t necessarily get the full appreciation of the athleticism of that,” said Ms. Compton
“I’m not ready for it to finish. I need a third act. A lot of work goes into a performance like [Shen Yun] and you can tell that they’ve worked incredibly hard,” she said.
Ms. Compton was taken aback by the beauty of [Water Sleeves], a graceful dance portrayed by the ladies of the imperial court.
“I'd love to see more of [Water Sleeves] … where [the dancers] were throwing the long sleeves and catching [them.] That was incredible,” she said.
“The artistry that went into that is, again, next level and unless you’ve done performing arts, you don’t necessarily appreciate how difficult that is and one wrong catch can actually ruin the entire performance. It’s such a lot of work that goes into that,” said Ms. Compton.
“And to me the artistry was just divine. I mean you can’t go up a level from there. That was already the top of the top really for that,” Ms. Compton said.
