NEW YORK—Artists often find inspiration after watching Shen Performing Arts and it was no exception for a husband and wife team on Saturday night at Radio City Music Hall. Mr. Christianson is a graphic designer, and his wife is in the animation business.
The digital backdrops caught their eye.
“They’re pretty fantastic,” Mr. Christianson said.
Some of the backdrops begin as a painting, some are created digitally. Many are animated, allowing flower petals to sweep gently across fields and snow to softly fall. Come show time, each is manually operated to integrate precisely with the rhythms of the performance.
“I think the way they treated the colors was pretty beautiful,” Mr. Christianson said. “I had a very nice time, it was a great show.”
Mrs. Christianson agreed.
“The show was very nice,” she said. “Beautiful costumes.”
She said the “Handkerchiefs” dance took a lot of skill.
A folk dance from the northeast of China, Handkerchiefs captures the flair of a flourishing spring that finally blossoms in a sparkling finale.
“It was very colorful. I would say that’s really why I like it,” Mrs. Christianson said. “Especially when they threw it up in the air and caught it.”
Cultural Anthropologist
“This was a very good performance, I was very impressed by the quality of some of the acrobatics, dance, and everything,” said Emilio, a cultural anthropologist who did not give his last name. “It’s very nice, very nice, I like it a lot.”
“I’m very much enjoying the performance,” said Susanna, a paralegal who also did not give her last name. “I love the costumes, I like the scenery, and there is a story, I like that the story is explained, and there is a message behind [it], a very spiritual message, the skill, the athleticism, [is] very nice.”
“I appreciate a lot of the spiritual aspects that they put in with the performance, so it was very nice,” said Emilio. “A lot of Chinese influence, a lot of Chinese culture.”
He felt that he had never seen a performance with this level ability before, saying others “are amateurs compared to this!”
He added, “Hope, inspiration, like the piece with the Falun Dafa, they are being persecuted, and then they give that very spiritual message at the end. You have a very professional level of performance.”
He was referring to a performance in Shen Yun, Nothing Can Block the Divine Path, is a scene from contemporary China where a mother and daughter both practice Falun Gong, a form of meditation currently persecuted in China.
With reporting by Mike Chen and Sally Sun.
Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company opened its first show of the Chinese Lunar New Year at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Saturday. Shen Yun will perform at Radio City Music Hall in New York Saturday Feb. 13 through Sunday Feb. 21.
For more information, please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
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