MELBOURNE, Australia—After a late summer heatwave, Melbourne cries, tears of rain, as Shen Yun Performing Arts World Company leaves Melbourne for Brisbane, the capital of the “sunshine state”, where they will perform at the Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre for four performances from Friday Feb. 26 to Sunday Feb. 28.
Many hearts were touched with the beauty of the music and dance of the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company at the Arts Centre Melbourne, State Theatre.
Divine Dancing
Erika Watts, a retired language teacher, loved Shen Yun.
“It was just divine, divine dancing,” she said. “It’s been just beautiful, superb. It made me feel quite serene … how beautiful dancing and music is, makes us all feel a lot better.”
Shen Yun’s story dances draw upon stories and legends that span China’s history from the Yellow Emperor all the way to the modern day.
According to the website, “Mortals and divine beings merge on stage as one. Principles such as benevolence and justice, propriety and wisdom, respect for the heavens, and divine retribution, all come to life, washing over the audience.
Ms. Watts was touched by some of these performances.
“It was very touching, it was also sad in parts and just made me feel why we as a human being can’t just live in harmony together, always have to fight, don’t want to fight.”
Shen Yun also incorporates solo singing performances.
As a singer in the church choir, Ms. Watts loved the soprano soloists, Min Jiang and Yuan Ling.
“My goodness, what a strong voice, fantastic,” she said. “I’ve listened to a lot of sopranos but I’ve never had that strong conviction in the song, in the words, I mean it really was singing and meaning very close together wasn’t it, amalgamating.”
Shen Yun Inspires Me to Dance
Jade Tang, a year 10 student, said she was hoping to get into the entertainment industry and was inspired after seeing Shen Yun today, to learn dance as well. She said after today her dream is to dance for Shen Yun.
“It really inspired me wanting to dance,” she said. “This is so inspirational to me, it made me happy, and it made my day and it was just amazing.”
There were so many aspects Ms. Yang liked.
“It was spectacular, I mean their techniques and how they dance and how they do flips and all that leaping and that are quite amazing and extraordinary,” she said. “The back screening—and how it merges onto the screen, great idea, amazing.”
Ms. Tang attended Shen Yun with her mother and aunt. She said she appreciated the cultural aspect and “how they dance, how they pour their emotions outward as well and how they exaggerated. It’s really good, it’s really believable, and it was so perfect. It was amazing like that.”
Showcasing Traditional Chinese Culture
Anastasia Ah Tong, a public servant, thought Shen Yun was fantastic. “It was showcasing traditional Chinese culture and elements of folk dancing, and things that we don’t see often today in the Western world,” she said.
“It was awesome to see that it was a real thing—traditional years and years of history of dancing, of collaboration of many arts coming together today.”
She feels sad the divine aspects of Chinese culture is rarely seen today because of the suppression of communist China. She was pleased to see the dancers are free to express more freedom “through the arts and traditional dance. Sh felt the spiritual aspect was important for the world today.
“It is often an aspect that is missing and can be used in today’s society,” she said. “It’s the key element—spirituality.”
She added, “It’s a fantastic way of seeing traditional culture, how many, many years ago when it was pure and when we would celebrate it.”
Reporting by NTD Television and Leigh Smith
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.
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.
