CHICAGO-ROSEMONT, Ill.—Carol Ann Parisi, Maria Planica, and Mark Stacy were pleasantly surprised by the spiritual depth in the storytelling presented by Shen Yun Performing Arts.
Their first time seeing Shen Yun, they attended the matinee performance at the Rosemont Theatre on March 28.
“It was visually enticing,” Mrs. Parisi said. “I didn’t realize the spiritual level of it, which was very deep … very good.”
“That was my first time, and I loved everything about it: the dance, the history, the message, and the costumes,” Ms. Planica said. “It was just amazing.”
Shen Yun’s one-of-a-kind orchestra blends traditional Chinese instruments with a classical Western orchestra. Ancient Chinese instruments, such as the two-string erhu and the pipa, lead the melody, supported by the fullness of the Western orchestra.
Mr. Stacy was impressed with the dynamism of classical Chinese dance, which is one of the most athletic and expressive art forms in the world.
“I like that choreography and the acrobatics with the dancing,“ he said. ”The way they’re flipping and spinning was very impressive.”
Mr. Stacy was also wowed by the company’s patented method of integrating an animated backdrop with the stage performance. To the amusement of many in the audience, it allows Shen Yun’s performers to travel back and forth between the stage and the background projection.
“We need tradition, we need to remember who we are, because if we forget who we are, we don’t know what our destiny could be, either,” Mrs. Parisi said.
“Communism destroys beauty,” Mr. Stacy said, noting the ideology’s legacy around the world.
Along with myths and legends from ancient times, Shen Yun also presents a dance-drama that tells the story of the ongoing religious persecution of the Falun Dafa meditators in China today.
In 1999, the Chinese communist party launched a persecution campaign against the spiritual practice and adherents have since been subjected to unprecedented imprisonment, torture, and abuse—including crimes of forced organ harvesting.
“People need to be aware and awake,” Mrs. Parisi said. “Sometimes the truth is very hard, but the truth when it hits you hard, it may awaken you to take more action and be more helpful to make other people aware of it.
“It kind of makes you accountable to who you should be [and] how you should be.”
Mrs. Parisi said the performance “makes you look inside to be better, to make everything better.”
“It was a good, positive, high-energy, vibrational message,” she added.
