OMAHA, Neb.—“It was wonderful. I’m speechless actually,” said Meghan Adair. She was referring to Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company first performance this year in the Midwest at the Orpheum Theater, on Jan. 14.
“Just very well put together, very artistically and beautifully done,” said Ms. Adair, a dancer. “The dance, the music, the costuming, everything.”
Shen Yun was formed in 2006 with renowned artists with a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture. It does so by tapestry of ancient myths, legends, and modern historical events in China through the arts of dance and music. The hallmark of Shen Yun is classical Chinese dance and original orchestral music which combines Western and Eastern instruments.
Ms. Adair recently retired from dancing after 28 years of ballet, modern dance, and jazz. She danced in such programs as the Christmas “Nutcracker.” “I'll continue to dance if I need to,” she said.
She was in awe of the Shen Yun dancers. “The skill was amazing. I can tell they are all classically trained.... They were wonderful dancers.”
The dancing looks effortless on stage but as Ms. Adair explains, “Timing and working together in unison is very difficult.”
As for the dancers, “I could tell they kind of feed off each other and yet they are still very different. They developed from each other.”
“You can tell how much the Chinese heritage has actually impacted Western world,” she said.
She described how so much artistry has developed from classical Chinese dance, “like the artistic gymnastics, your other acrobatic gymnastics and then even ballet,” she explained.
For Ms. Adair the storytelling of Shen Yun was enhanced by the interaction of all components of the performance. “[They] did a very good job of using those props to really extend the movement and that was amazing,” she said.
“The control that they had over, like the ribbons, and the handkerchief blossoms. That was amazing, the control that they had.” Even when tossing the handkerchiefs and how “they were coming back almost like a boomerang. It was very neat.”
Shen Yun is leading the industry with its stunning digital backdrops that interact with the performers and tell part of the story.
She was impressed with the interactive nature of the background scenes for each of the 20 mini-dance or vocal dramas. “I know how difficult that is. And when … coming from the backdrop and popping up onto the stage, that is not an easy task to put together.”
Reporting by Sally Sun and Cat Rooney
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reaction since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
