RALEIGH, N.C.—Excitement was brimming at the Memorial Auditorium at Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts on March 8. Mark and Shannon O’Hara hoped for a wonderful performance of Shen Yun Performing Arts and they got it.
Mr. O’Hara, a business consultant, said, “It was very beautiful. I didn’t know what to expect because we’ve never been to this before, and it was very, very enjoyable.”
Mrs. O’Hara, a nurse, explained why they came. “When I was in college, I saw it advertised, and I’ve always wanted to go. We saw it was in the area, so we decided to come and try it out. I thought it was excellent,” she said.
Mr. O’Hara tried to describe the dances: “Beautiful is the only word that really comes to mind because it’s amazing.”
Shen Yun performers undergo rigorous training at Fei Tian Academy in Upstate New York.
“I can’t imagine the effort and the practice and the time it takes to be able to even perform something like that, and the time it takes to do it all synchronized and together,” Mr. O’Hara said.
“It was really neat to see the stories come to life and I think that a lot of the culture is missed nowadays because you don’t see something like this every day,” he said.
Shen Yun’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of traditional culture from China before communism. Modern audiences love the values that are embedded in the stories and told in dance.
“I think it’s such a unique experience because it is something that we don’t see very often. I think if more people could see it, it does give you an appreciation for the history and the culture of China,” Mrs. O’Hara said.
She said this is “probably [a culture] most people in the world don’t even recognize because we just think of it in modern terms. So just to know that there is so much more to the country than what we see now, it was incredible.”
Mr. O’Hara was amazed at China’s deep, rich culture. He said Shen Yun offers a way to “further understand and experience something that we’ve never seen before. You can’t read this in a book. It’s very enjoyable to experience something like this. A dance that tells a story and a song that opens your eyes to a different world.”
A part of Shen Yun’s program is singers trained in the traditional bel canto method who sing in Mandarin while the lyrics are projected on the backdrop in English.
Mr. O’Hara said he was impressed. “I’m very glad that there were words on the screen so that we could understand what they were singing about. It’s amazing the range and how beautiful their voices were.”
He said he would wholeheartedly recommend people to see Shen Yun. “I would say it’s an exciting exhibition of dance and culture in order to understand better something that people haven’t been exposed to.”
Mrs. O’Hara agreed. “I'd say like a unique experience. You can’t really put it into words. You have to come, be here, and see it in person to really understand and to appreciate it.”
