MELBOURNE, Australia—Shen Yun Performing Arts graced the stage at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from March 10–15. Audience members were delighted to see ancient stories from China’s 5,000 year old culture presented through music and dance.
“I think it’s a lost beautiful culture that we don’t get to see enough of,” said Catherine Concannon, a retired race horse owner.
Anthony Concannon, a company director, said, “I think it was a real mixture of ballet, the history that we’ve read and learned today. It’s the first time we’ve seen it, and it’s been great.”
Maurice Stolfa, the director of an asset finance company, said, “Just a very pure culture that was coming to earth, being introduced from a heavenly place.”
Peter Hogan, an accountant, said he enjoyed, “the mystical stories and I love the monkey scene, but the part where they jump off stage and that goes into the animation is actually brilliant. I don’t know how they do it.”
Founded in New York 20 years ago, Shen Yun has a mission to revive China’s authentic culture from “China before communism.” Through a live orchestra, a digital backdrop and classical Chinese dance, the pieces bring ancient legends and historical characters to life on stage.
Audience members said they resonated with the spirituality in traditional Chinese culture.
Father Peter Agaibi, a priest with the St. George Coptic Orthodox Church, said he could draw parallels from the stories, like the legend of the monkey with the “goodwill of the people and how what you sow you reap,” with his own beliefs. “And the belief in the afterlife, in heaven, and the support that the person will have from heaven when he does the right thing,” he said.
“Everything had a beautiful flow. I truly enjoyed that and especially the message about being open to divinity, being open to our true essence, to find our true purpose in life, that was one of the best themes and scenes in this performance,” Dr. Snezhana Djambazova-Popordanoska, a counsellor, said.
“These themes that are in many classical cultures, and you see the themes of being kind to someone who is down and out, and then they turn out to be a God, a Divinity, and the people get rewarded and things like that—that’s very classic,” writer Barbara Marinakis said.
Shen Yun will be performing in Sydney, Australia, from March 20–29.
NTD News, Melbourne, Australia
NTD is a media sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts, covering audience reactions since 2006.
