WASHINGTON—The dancers of the classical Chinese dance company, Shen Yun Performing Arts, looked radiant as they reenacted scenes of deities in the heavens at the Trump Kennedy Center Opera House on Jan. 17. Dr. Haroon Akhta, a family physician who saw the performance with his family, called Shen Yun “a great exposition.”
Even though Dr. Akhta hails from Pakistan, a close neighbor to China, and was privy to knowledge of Chinese culture growing up, he always felt China was “a little bit hidden from the rest of the world.”
Shen Yun “gives me a [great amount of] insight again into China’s historical trail of culture, art, tradition, all the society that we don’t know,” he said.
Shen Yun’s live orchestra, which flows with the dancers and blends Western and Chinese instruments.
“It reached and connected to my soul,” Dr. Akhta said.
Glauco Candido, a military advisor for the Brazilian Air Force saluted the dancers’ efforts: “My last word for this is, ‘You are incredible!’”
“I can feel people surrounding us in the row had the same vibration,” he said, adding that they were “very excited about it.”
Shen Yun is a classical Chinese dance company that showcases the 5,000 years of the traditional culture of China before communism.
Mr. Candido said the performance did a great job conveying this spiritual backstory in a way that’s “truly understandable” to Western eyes.
Kyle Swithers, a local golf teacher and business owner, loved the visual effects onstage. He highlighted Shen Yun’s high-tech 3D animated backdrop, which transports audience members into the clouds, into ancient palaces, and even to the moon. He called the interaction between the digital scenery and the dancers onstage seamless.
“The costumes were, obviously, stellar,” he said. “The talent of all the dancers, it was beautiful.”
While Shen Yun has a mission to revive the traditional culture of China that was almost destroyed during China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the company is not able to perform in mainland China. Many of the performers are believers of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that is persecuted in China today. Scenes of religious persecution in present-day China are even included in segments of the performance.
Marcos Agrelli, an implementation analyst who was born in Brazil but now lives in Virginia, highlighted the importance of this aspect of Shen Yun.
“China, and any country that has communism,” will suffer repression, he said, adding that people were “made to be free.”
He called Shen Yun’s teaching of spirituality through the medium of classical Chinese dance beautiful.
“Everyone has morality,” he said. “This is the [beauty] from the Asian culture, and we need to learn more.”
