DETROIT—“It’s hard to get that detail, but they did a beautiful job on a technical aspect of everything,” said Eli Arnaout after watching Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company on Feb.7.
Eli Arnaout, a supervisor for the global command center for Ally Bank, and his wife Kathy saw Shen Yun’s matinee performance at the Detroit Opera House.
“I was anxious to see it. I love it. It was very good,” said Mrs. Arnaout.
Shen Yun is a New York-based dance and music company whose mission is to revitalize traditional Chinese culture through classical Chinese dance.
According to the company’s website, “Classical Chinese dance has helped preserve 5,000 years of Chinese culture. Built on traditional aesthetics, it was once passed down among the people, in imperial courts, and through ancient plays. Over thousands of years, it was constantly refined, eventually developing into the vast and distinctly Chinese dance form we know today.”
What stood out for Eli Arnaout was the visual elements and the unique interactions between the dancers and the digital backdrops. “This is something different that I’ve never seen done on a stage. So it was really unique,” he said.
He also mentioned that the choreography was spot on. “These guys looked like they trained, and it showed. Between them using the music as their guide and doing the play, even drawing on the screen was very timely.”
For Kathy Arnaout the idea of heaven she saw onstage just clicked. While listening to some of the songs presented, the lyrics made her think about the spiritual values she saw in them. She liked their perspective.
Due to more than 60 years of suppression under communist rule, many of the spiritual aspects of China’s ancient traditions have been lost or thrown away. Since around 1949, the communist regime has outlawed many traditional practices that do not conform to atheist ideology. In some cases, this has led to large-scale persecution and genocide.
“Persecution in China is all over the board,” Mr. Arnaout mentioned. He explained that it’s not just Chinese culture that’s been dismantled but all different faiths as well. “The state is its own religion,” he said.
“We see this aspect about heaven, about returning to where we came from,” he said in relation to common spiritual themes in the performance. “I really connected with that and the spiritual aspect of that. It’s very universal, it’s very touching, and it’s very true to the core of. This is not our home,” he said.
Our home is “something beyond.”
Reporting by Charlie Lu and Andrew Darin
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
