STAMFORD, Conn.—Harry and Margaret Roney saw Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time, and were left inspired by the artists’ mission to keep their traditional culture alive.
“It’s very nice that they have taken the spirit of their country and their culture before communism, and they’re willing to express it so beautifully,” Mr. Roney, an executive in construction, said from the Palace Theatre after
Shen Yun’s evening performance on April 29.
“It’s definitely been suppressed but these people are willing to show their love for their heritage,” he said. “It’s great. And so it keeps it alive.”
“Keep it up, bring on the next generation, keep it going. They’re very good stewards of their traditions and they need to pass it on, right?”
Based in New York,
Shen Yun was founded in 2006 by leading Chinese artists and quickly became the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. Shen Yun’s
mission is to revive 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture.
Mrs. Roney thought the performance was “beautiful: the colors, the dancers, it’s just absolutely beautiful.”
They remarked that the pre-communist
culture of China was deeply spiritual. Being of Catholic faith, Mrs. Roney noted that although they had a different religious and cultural background than what was being presented on stage, there was a universal element that both her Catholic traditions and Chinese culture share.
“It’s different but the same,” she said, with her husband echoing her.
‘A Lot of Courage’
Rev. Father Douglas Tufaro, attending the same performance, thought
Shen Yun was an uplifting experience.
“Not only the story, but just the narrative and the whole sense of the spiritual and the divine: It’s a beautiful message,” he said. “The dancing [was something special]—especially to see the men dancing with all of those acrobatic moves, and the women, so graceful.”
Mr. Tufaro enjoyed the stories told in Shen Yun and the traditional culture that was represented, finding similarities to his own Christian tradition.
He added that he felt sad learning that this traditional culture, with its reverence for the divine, was something China’s ruling communist regime has tried to root out. He pointed out that
Shen Yun included this topic in a story, which showed how communism “suppressed people of faith and tradition.”
“We’re very sad about that,” he said, adding that the people of faith, and Shen Yun, have showed “a lot of courage.”
Reporting by Sally Sun and Weiyong Zhu.
