ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—Former classical dancer Mary Dito was floored by what she saw on stage at the Shen Yun Performing Arts on Feb. 7.
Mrs. Dito, who danced throughout her life and owned two dance studios before her retirement, said the Shen Yun performance at Duke Energy Center for the Arts was perfection.
“They were excellent!” she said, adding it was clear the dancers trained extensively.
“There is a lot of rehearsing, a lot of work on it—they are so dedicated.”
Mrs. Dito attended the performance with her husband John Dito and friends Pam Wiggins and Bryan Killian.
Mr. Dito, who is now retired from military service, loved the digitally animated backdrops featured in the show. The high-tech screens act as an extension of the stage and project landscapes and imagery from China’s past and present. An audience favorite, they are timed perfectly with the dancers to make it appear as if the performers can jump in and out of the screen.
“It was excellent ... the way they came out, it was almost like 3D,” he said.
“The backdrops were amazing!” added Mrs. Dito.
Ms. Wiggins, a retired mental health therapist, was impressed by the synchronicity between the performers. Shen Yun’s classical Chinese dance and folk dance often features large-scale group dances that require the performers to move in perfect unison and harmony.
“The dance was very complex to me and that was very beautiful, it was very together, nobody was out of sync, it was amazing,” she said.
“That amazed me!” Mrs. Dito added.
Mr. Killian, also a retired therapist, said he would “definitely” come back to see Shen Yun next year and found the story-based dance to be entertaining.
“There was some things that were entertaining, you know, in a fun way,” he said. “The comedy in it.”
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s foremost classical Chinese dance and music company. Formed by overseas Chinese artists in 2006, the company’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese culture—a culture that has been decimated under decades of repression by the communist regime.
Ms. Dito said the performers embodied their mission to revive the spiritual culture.
“You see it in the expression; they are into it,” she said. “Beautiful.”
Reporting by Marie Yeung and Justina Wheale
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.
