CLEVELAND—A belated Christmas present was delivered this afternoon at the State Theatre to Maureen Mason, a retired vice-president of human resources at Olympic Steel.
“The show, I thought it was so beyond my expectations,” Ms. Mason stated. I just thought it was just fabulous. These tickets were given to me as a Christmas present and I had no idea what to expect.”
New York-based Shen Yun brings 5,000 years of Chinese civilization to the world in a music and dance program. Both the songs and dance pieces are imbued with the values of a culture the Chinese traditionally held was semi-divine in its origin.
“I’ve been to China, and [her sister] knew I loved Chinese dance, but this production and everything about it was just first class,” she said.
Ms. Mason attended the show with friend Patricia Patterson son who does professional development for the Catholic Dioceses of Cleveland.
“I thought it was absolutely first class,” Ms. Patterson commented.
“I have traveled through a lot of countries that are Buddhist, and I find it beautiful and the spiritual nature of this production added to it. It was wonderful, it was peaceful, and it was a comment of love. I thought it was beautiful, spreading a universal truth.,” Ms. Patterson said.
Ms. Patterson described one of the powerful messages she got out of the show that relates to a current situation in China: the suppression of people of faith. “I actually was surprised; ... but I enjoyed that aspect of it, and like I said, I liked the presentation of the universal Truth, the portrayal of evil as the red demon.”
“I thought it was very good and had a very strong message not to let it get you down, to continue to fight. I thought it was very good, very good message,” she explained.
Ms Mason agreed by saying, “That the universal Truth doesn’t go away, that’s part of our human nature and we'll always continue to strive for that. Strive for freedom and that is what they were talking about.”
“I would say that it is a culture centered in the universal truth of why we exist, and fighting to get back to that, standing up for freedom, for justice,” Ms. Mason said.
Ms. Patterson explained her assessment of the show’s artistic quality: “I would just say that the artistic value was so beyond what I expected: the production quality, the costuming, the color of the costuming and use of the visuals in the background was one of the neatest things that I have seen.”
“Absolutely, they were outstanding, outstanding. The precision, athletes, they were just wonderful,” Ms. Mason added.
Ms. Mason said that she would summarize the show as: “Precision, it was absolute perfection. I don’t think I saw one person off beat. And very refined—the interpretation of the message and the stories through dance. I loved it, I enjoyed it very much, and the music too, and then the technology. The use of the video and transitioning to the live theater was very interesting.”
She was referring to the digitally animated backdrops that interact with the stage performers.
Regretfully, Ms. Patterson commented, “I wish I had known what this was about; I have two close friends and relatives that have adopted Chinese babies. They are older now, in high school; I would have loved for them to have seen [it] ... I think they would have been so excited about their culture. I wish I would have known more about it and had them here.”
“You get very impressed with all of the problems in the world, but you see the elegance and the grace, the beauty and you think there should be more of that in life, just beautiful,” said Ms. Patterson.
Reporting by Valerie Avore and Andrew Darin
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.
The 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.
