BALTIMORE—After seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts, Lawrence Andrews and Vicki Greer felt they wanted to thank the performers. The heart and talent of the performers had touched the couple, who felt they were destined to see Shen Yun at the Hippodrome Theatre on Feb. 9 to celebrate their one year anniversary and the upcoming Valentine’s Day.
“Art can convey things words cannot,” said Mr. Andrews, who had wanted to see Shen Yun for years and who wanted to share that thought with the performers.
“If you love something you can make it beautiful and everyone will love it with you,” Ms. Greer said.
New York-based Shen Yun seeks to bring the beauty of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization to life through music and dance, all in a two-hour period.
Ms. Greer, who owns a healthcare product business, said overall that she felt exhilarated by the performance.
“The parts that were exhilarating, I was exhilarated. The parts that were heartwarming, my heart was warmed. The parts that were meant to be sad, I felt sad. The parts that were meant to be touching and make you think about your spirituality, I felt that,” Ms. Greer said.
The Chinese culture is said to be divinely inspired, and thus deeply spiritual. This was something Ms. Greer felt personally.
The name Shen Yun translates into “the beauty of divine beings dancing,” and the performance was completely true to its name, according to Ms. Greer.
“The name of the show is divine movement, divine meaning coming from somewhere above. So through the entire show I kept thinking how does that play back to divine? And ... everything looked very divine,” she said.
The program is largely comprised of classical Chinese dance. It is an art form that was passed down and refined over thousands of years, soaking up wisdom from every era, according to Shen Yun. As such, the postures, movements, and the meanings behind them, are distinctly culturally Chinese.
In addition to being a very expressive form, classical Chinese dance includes difficult tumbling and aerial techniques. Mr. Lawrence, who is interested in martial arts, found he could pick out many movements that were similar, like a difficult front cartwheel with no hands. It is because martial arts and classical Chinese dance are forms that developed alongside each other, Shen Yun’s website explains.
Such an ancient art form made for the perfect medium to showcase China’s rich history.
Ms. Greer pointed out that no one dancer was the star—rather, every single dancer had to be just as perfect as the next. It was amazing, she said, and it all came together to tell a big story. It wasn’t just the history, but the common theme seemed to be “if you do good, you get good,” Ms. Greer said.
Mr. Lawrence also said it spoke to his personal beliefs.
“What’s going around you, that doesn’t matter,” he explained. “What’s going on in here, [in your heart], and what you receive [from above], that’s what supposed to come. All the other stuff doesn’t matter, or isn’t supposed to affect what goes on in here,” he said.
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.
