SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Starts 12-Performance Run in Houston

Dec 29, 2014
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Shen Yun Starts 12-Performance Run in Houston
Audience members taking in Shen Yun at Houston’s Jones Hall for the Performing Arts. (Chen Xiao Xiao/Epoch Times)

HOUSTON—With the Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company staging its opening performance Sunday, Dec. 28, in Houston, all four of Shen Yun’s companies are on the road.

This season’s inaugural performances started Dec. 26 simultaneously in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with the Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company, and in Austin, Tex., with the Shen Yun Performing Arts World Company.

The following day, the Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company, started its tour with shows in Hamilton, Canada.

Charles and Janis Lively attend Shen Yun Performing Arts at Houston's Jones Hall for the Performing Arts on Dec. 28, 2014. (Yunxia Guo/Epoch Times)
Charles and Janis Lively attend Shen Yun Performing Arts at Houston's Jones Hall for the Performing Arts on Dec. 28, 2014. (Yunxia Guo/Epoch Times)

Among the audience members taking in Shen Yun at Houston’s Jones Hall for the Performing Arts on Dec. 28, were Janis and Charles Lively.

“It’s amazing. … This is our anniversary celebration and it has just been amazing,” said Ms. Lively.

“Beautiful and uplifting and spiritual,” she added.

Ms. Lively was a schoolteacher and school choir director before retirement. She is now an officer of the board of directors of the Lake Houston Musical Arts Society.

She had high praise for the Shen Yun Orchestra, which plays original scores to accompany the dances. The orchestra combines traditional Chinese instruments with a classical Western orchestra.

“It’s wonderful. I love the combination of the Western music and the Chinese instruments, it’s beautiful, just beautiful,” she said.

She found the performance uplifting.

“The beautiful colors and the great dancing, [are] just very, very uplifting,” she said, adding that the theme of compassion in one of the performances was also very uplifting for her.

Mr. Lively was also struck by the beauty of the performance and was delighted that the orchestra features a harp.

“I think the dancing was wonderful and the graphics are extraordinary. It was very enjoyable,” he said.

“I think it would be good if everyone could see this, because of the beauty of it all.”

“Just the music and the dancing and the visuals, then the costuming—it’s just beautiful. Everything about it is beautiful. Too bad everybody can’t be here,” he said.

‘It lifts you out of this world’

Simon and Janie Jackson at Shen Yun, in Houston, Sunday Dec. 28, 2014. (Yunxia Guo/Epoch Times)
Simon and Janie Jackson at Shen Yun, in Houston, Sunday Dec. 28, 2014. (Yunxia Guo/Epoch Times)

Simon and Janie Jackson were another couple enjoying Shen Yun in Houston Sunday evening.

“Loved the colors and obviously everybody is extraordinarily talented,” said Mr. Jackson, who is the president of a local company in Houston.

Mr. Jackson said he was intrigued by the performance.

“It’s definitely invigorating. It’s a combination of colors, music and movement that is not typically Western culture. It takes you out of a city of noise, hustle, and bustle and I guess in a sense it’s very meditative.”

Formed in 2006 in New York by a group of leading classical Chinese artists, Shen Yun has the mission to revive China’s divinely inspired traditional culture.

“I think, the essence of the show is that it does put you in a state of meditation you wouldn’t normally think about and see in your living room,” Mr. Jackson said.

“It lifts you out of this world,” Ms. Jackson said.

“I think it’s been a wonderful demonstration of the colors and the culture and the vibrance,” she said.

Reporting by Yunxia Guo

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org

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.