SAN JOSE—After seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time on Dec. 30, Will Reyes-Cubides, the dean of San Jose City College, was overwhelmed with emotions. “The happiness that the dancers radiated truly touched my heart.”
“The pieces were so emotional to me. Just the beauty of the dances, the costumes, and the aesthetics was something incredible. It moved me. It’s not just dance, it is art,” he said after the evening show at the Center for the Performing Arts in San Jose on Dec. 30.
Based in New York, Shen Yun is the world’s leading classical Chinese dance and music company. Prior to the 1949 communist takeover, belief in Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism formed the basis of Chinese life. Shen Yun artists are now committed to bringing back this divinely inspired culture.
Having spent a few months in China and Tibet, Mr. Reyes-Cubides is familiar with this spiritual background and he was wowed by how Shen Yun incorporated this into its series of short dance pieces.
“The connection between the divine beings and the earth beings, and how they intertwined into the story was very amazing to me,” he said.
Mr. Reyes-Cubides thought the spread of atheism by the Chinese Communist Party and its ban on Shen Yun from performing in China was truly horrendous.
“One of the songs [by Shen Yun vocalists] talked about atheism and how the modern world is so disconnected from spirituality. It’s the culprit of everything that is happening. People are disconnected from our inner essence, which is divine. It’s very important to bring that back,” Mr. Reyes-Cubides expressed.
“We need to bring [traditional culture] back. One way to bring it back is to present it to the entire world so that folks in China get the support needed to continue to resist. If they don’t resist, then the traditions will go away.”
Reporting by Sunny Chen and Jennifer Tseng.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
