“It was truly amazing, beautiful. I had heard about it but this is my first time seeing it. I came from Parma especially to see it, and it is truly very exciting, very moving. The message that goes beyond the skill of the artists, the beauty of the music, the choreography, the costumes, the bright colors, and the interaction with the screen is a very beautiful thing,” said Priamo Bocchi, a regional councillor for the Emilia Romagna region.
Marco Angelini, president of the Palestrina Foundation, said of Shen Yun’s patented special effect that makes use of a digital projection on stage, “Wonderful. It’s divine music, a show that takes you from the reality of the stage to the fantasy of the screen. It is beautiful to imagine real bodies moving on the stage and then becoming ethereal on the screen. This effect is very beautiful.”
“A truly incredible show, millennia of history condensed into just over two hours,” Livio Ricciardelli, council president for Rome’s First Municipality, said. “It’s beautiful when dance, music, and culture serve as a bridge between peoples.
“Today, it really felt like I spent two hours in China, but in the real China, the authentic China, the China of tradition and spirituality. Truly an evening, it’s something I will remember forever because it was, in its own way, a unique experience.”
Councillor Bocchi said, “The message is to rediscover the spiritual and religious essence within each of us. The divine that is within every man. And above all, the value of freedom and spirituality, which we know today, is being stifled by the Chinese communist regime. So this is a message that must absolutely be taken into serious consideration.”
Cinzia Pellegrino, an Italian senator, said, “This is my second year attending the Shen Yun show, and it’s always exciting and thrilling. The first thing that comes to mind is that they are exceptionally talented. They are not just dancers, they are acrobats. So there is a very high quality, total excellence, from an artistic point of view, combined with the great message of freedom, human rights, freedom of expression, religion, and opinion that they bring with them.”
Based in New York, Shen Yun has been touring the world since 2006, bringing themes of spirituality and faith on stage, through classical Chinese dance and music. Audience members resonate with the messages from the dance and the solo performances.
Councillor Bocchi said, “I come from Parma, the home of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera, so we are lovers of bel canto, and I must say that [the soprano] was very good, the message was beautiful, the words were beautiful, and her vocal technique was great. So if she came to Parma to sing, she would also receive applause from us at the Teatro Regio in Parma.”
Mr. Angelini said, “I was imagining a connection between the Creator that you depicted in China with our religion, with our way of thinking and imagining. The person who embodied this God who descended perhaps I found very corpulent compared to everything else. He had a very strong build, but the image also of this very large sun was very beautiful, this light that radiated. And I hope it is a sign, a wish for peace for the future among peoples.”
“I was already cultivating spirituality and meditation. And now I understand that the Chinese people also need to return to their spiritual roots in order to have compassion and tolerance,” said Antonio Santoro, a retired doctor. “Especially when they talked about ancient Chinese stories, many of which I didn’t know, it was wonderful to learn about these Chinese traditions that come from so far away and that should be studied by the whole world—not just China. And you are doing a valuable job. Very good, well done.”
