COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Robert Glaze, professor in Oxford University’s postgraduate arm, Green Templeton College, has a global mission. Shen Yun Performing Arts has a global mission, too. The professor and performing company met in Colorado Springs at the Pikes Peak Center on April 5.
“It was just stunning—the choreography, the dancers. I thought that the representation of the culture and the role of the divine was a new experience,” said Mr. Glaze after seeing the classical Chinese dance and music company for the first time.
Shen Yun’s aim is to restore the nearly lost culture of China’s 5,000 years of civilization. That culture springs from spiritual sources, as Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism informed the Celestial Kingdom, as it was known, over the years.
With leading roles in think tanks like the Brenva Institute and the Lorange Institute, Mr. Glaze’s mission is to develop ideas for businesses to best manage the digital era globally.
Despite his business perspective, Mr. Glaze believes that man’s inherent nature is spiritual. Societies today, he says, either due to economical or to political systems, are replacing people’s need for meaning and purpose in their lives.
People, “they need a reason for being. They’re not just an economic unit; they are spiritual,” he said.
And he found Shen Yun’s performance uplifting and inspirational: “The whole experience was a human experience.”
By human experience, he meant that as humans, irrespective of our cultural or spiritual backgrounds, we all have a similar a background that “speaks to the divine and speaks to our place with nature.”
He considers Shen Yun a cultural and spiritual experience with fabulous choreography, costuming, and stories that are told through dance.
Classical Chinese dance, one of the most expressive dance systems in the world, is the means Shen Yun uses to tell the stories that embody China’s culture and give life to its spiritual depths.
Irrespective of our different spiritual heritages, “I think that we’re all spiritual beings, no matter where we live,” Mr. Glaze said.
Reporting by Lily Yu and Sharon Kilarski
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.
