School Director Is Grateful for Shen Yun’s Spiritual Culture
Feb 11, 2024
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Maggie Romance at Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, in Tuscon, on Feb. 10, 2024. (NTD)
TUSCON, Ariz.—Maggie Romance, director of Continuing Education at Pima Community College, was deeply touched by the Shen Yun Performing Arts concert at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall on Feb. 10.
“I loved it. … It’s beyond remarkable,” said Mrs. Romance.
“The color and the liveliness and the emotion that each one of the dances was able to express was just amazing to me that without words that it could show itself that way,” she said.
“New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company. According to the company’s website, classical Chinese dance involves a dance-acting element where coordinating facial expressions with physical movements results in an amplified form of expression.
Through the universal language of music and dance, Shen Yun presents story-based dances depicting heavenly realms, ancient legends, and modern heroic tales spanning 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture.
“I was watching very closely the movement of the dancers. And I am just in awe of how they can manipulate their bodies in such a magnificent way with such grace and lightness,” she added.
China was once known as “The Land of the Divine,” and Shen Yun presents this culture by drawing upon the Middle Kingdom’s Buddhist and Daoist philosophies.
“I think that that is something that we need more of, and I am very appreciative to see that it’s being given on a larger audience,” said Mrs. Romance.
In the past, artists looked to the divine for inspiration and cultivated virtue in order to create uplifting art. Today, Shen Yun’s artists follow in this noble tradition, which is why audiences feel there is something different about Shen Yun, says the company’s website.
“I’m just very grateful that they take the time and the energy to embrace their beliefs and let it shine throughout the world.”
Jim Garrett at Shen Yun at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall on Feb. 10, 2024. (Sophia Fang /The Epoch Times)
Jim Garrett, owner of a real estate investment company, also attended the matinee production at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall on Feb. 10. He said he enjoyed “the bright colors, the vibrancy of the artists, [and] the flow.”
Recognizing some of the similarities and differences between ballet and classical Chinese dance, Mr. Garrett said, “It’s different from ballet in ways that I’m enjoying … very flowing and elegant.”
Alongside ballet, Chinese classical dance is one of the most comprehensive dance systems in the world. According to the company’s website, Shen Yun has preserved the true aesthetics of this classical dance system—the way it has been passed down from antiquity— and presents this authentic culture in its purest form.
Mr. Garrett appreciated how Shen Yun carried the theme of spirituality throughout the vignettes, from the first piece depicting “everyone descending from heaven” to dance the stories of portraying modern China.
“Buddhism is a very big part of this culture, that was neat to see,” he said, “and a good variety of both ancient days to present day … lots of different ethnicities and geography.”
“I’ve enjoyed also how it’s broken up into sort of set pieces … for folks like me that don’t understand as much.”
Reporting by NTD, Sophia Fang, and Jennifer Schneider.
