DETROIT—Dance company founder and retired dance instructor Diane Mancinelli said Shen Yun Performing Arts was one she would be recommending to friends and family after seeing the company perform at the Detroit Opera House on Jan. 17, 2020.
“This is a must-see show. It was really well done,” Mancinelli said.
Mancinelli was formerly a concert dance instructor at Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan, where she had taught ballet, modern, and jazz styles. She attended the performance with David Kalota.
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. According to the website, “For 5,000 years, divine culture flourished in the land of China.” Shen Yun’s mission is to revive this culture through the performing arts.
Mancinelli thought the entire performance was lovely and that the performers were very talented. Everything from the music, the artistry, the choreography, to the costumes and the colors were “absolutely beautiful—spectacular,” she said.
As a former dance instructor, how did she evaluate the dancers’ skill level?
“Oh, it was over the top. It was, they were very skilled and very talented and very well-practiced … all the elements of the theater were very well-coordinated and it was just beautifully done,” she said.
Mancinelli thought the coordination of the music and dance together was done beautifully.
“The movement was absolutely perfectly in union,” she commented. “A lot of symmetry, lots of formality. It’s wonderful that the dancers study, and bring forth this ancient art form.”
“The technology was amazing to see and the backdrops were beautiful works of art in themselves,” she said of the scenery and the digitally projected backdrops.
Mancinelli loved the introductions that were given at the beginning of each vignette by bilingual emcees, as they provided a little background knowledge to help one understand what one was about to see.
“I love the fact that it was in English and in Chinese,” she said.
Kalota stated that he would tell his family and friends that Shen Yun is a “cultural feast for the eyes,” a sentiment Mancinelli echoed.
