CLAREMONT, Calif.—Andrea Swann, a research and prospect management director, attended a performance of Shen Yun Performing Arts on March 11 at Bridges Auditorium at Pomona College. “It’s been very beautiful,” she said. “I love hearing [about] the culture and the history. I’m loving seeing the different dances because I didn’t know much about China going into this.”
Ms. Swann noted the beautiful costumes of the performance. “I assume they’re silk, the way they flow and with the long sleeves. [They’re] very beautiful.”
The storytelling also impressed her. “It’s good. Very good. I like that it’s both in English and Chinese,” she said, speaking of the bilingual emcees who introduced each of the separate performances.
She said she could feel the energy of the dancers and the orchestra. “The orchestra does a great job of building you up. And the dancers do a great job with the emotions in their faces and really telling a story with their bodies.”
Through body language, the dancers send an important message, she said: “Happiness. There are a lot of happy people. They’ve gone through a lot of, I guess, some struggles and trauma in the past, but still happy, and they have hope.”
Ms. Swann wants to support Shen Yun’s mission. “I love that they’re trying to bring the tradition back ... . It makes me want to go learn more of the history and read more and watch more and support in any way that I can.”‘You feel it in your whole soul,’ Says Writer
Diana Lee Moran, a writer, got a chance to see China’s traditional culture of the past at the same Shen Yun performance. “I think it’s actually extraordinary how they’re depicting what China was, and what it is, and some of the transitions their culture has gone through so far.”
Although it was her first time to see Shen Yun, she would might like to see it again, because, each year, the whole performance of 20 or so separate performances—the music in each, the costumes, the choreography—is entirely new.
“I do like tradition, and I am interested in different cultural traditions and how they impact us and how they impact the world. I like to know a little bit more about other cultures and the other ways that people live.”
She felt in tune with the spiritual aspect of the performance. “I think I was kind of surprised by how much spirituality came through, and I really shouldn’t be because I’m kind of in tune more to spirituality these days. I’m going on a spiritual journey myself. So I’m more in tune with spiritual journeys of other people as well right now.”In commenting on a storying-telling dance scene in which a divine being comes to earth, Ms. Moran said, “I’m thinking it was pretty awesome. It’s hard to even have words [for it], even as a writer. It’s just something that’s in your heart, your gut, and you feel it in your whole soul—it feels like it’s my spirituality.
“It was a different spirituality; I think that’s okay. I think that feels good, too, to connect to people because of that. That’s their spirituality, and we can be connected by that.”
