BALTIMORE—Lillian Taylor, a nurse practitioner and former professional dancer, came with her daughter to see Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Hippodrome Theatre, Feb. 9. Daughter Lori Taylor is the choreographer of her dance company in Brooklyn New York.
Describing her family as having a rich background in music and dance, Ms. Taylor said, the classical Chinese dance is beyond expectation, it is enjoyable, and it is awesome.”
Ms. Taylor described the finesse and the perfection, which others have also observed, and noted, “It is well appreciated by those of us who know dance and art.”
Ms. Taylor also appreciated being enlightened by the words of the songs. “I was looking at the interpretation of the words … they can stand for values and morals to be preserved in spite the degradation of some of the modern stuff and modern technology that is going on. The music from the soloists bring life and it justifies that we need to keep morals and values even in the decline of society.”
Dr. Don Alves, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University where he teaches emergency medicine, saw the show on Feb. 10. He suggested that he didn’t fully realize the centrality of spiritual beliefs in Chinese history.
“It was almost knocked out existence or suppressed out of existence by the communists ... it isn’t just a normal performance. It is above and beyond,” was his take away after the performance.
Newcomers to Shen Yun sometimes worry that a Chinese show means they won’t understand the Chinese spoken. Of course, anything spoken in Chinese is translated, although dancing and music are universal languages that do not need any translation to appreciate the beauty of it.
William “Pete” Welch, Councilman for the 9th district of Baltimore City, referred to how much the written translation accompanying the soprano meant to him:
“I love the spiritual aspects of it. I love the soprano who sang. Her voice was perfect and I love the words being translated on the stage, because I would listen to it and understand the beauty of it. But to understanding the actual words and what it was meant to convey to the audience was excellent.”
On this note of morality comparing today with antiquity, other audience members picked up on as well.
Lindsey Plotts, from Baltimore, came with retail manager Nikolaus Pollutra and had much to comment on the performance. Ms. Plotts said that the message she took away was a “nice message of being compassionate and being truthful and honest, you know, things that I think modern society is sometimes lacking.”
She shared another impression she got from the show: “... that being a good person is the most important thing in life. And you can spread that message while being visional beautiful and using dance and art.”
Reporting by NTD Television, Jenny Jing, Sherry Dong, and Gary Feuerberg
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.
