CLEVELAND, Ohio—Musician and actor Martin Carlton, who has worked in the film industry for 20 years, enjoyed Shen Yun’s matinee on Jan. 28 at the State Theatre at Playhouse Square.
Ever since he was a child, Mr. Charlton has been a big fan of Chinese culture. So, when he saw the advertisement for Shen Yun Performing Arts, he decided to give it a try.
After the performance, he said
Shen Yun is “a beautiful thing that fills my heart with joy.” There was “tremendous beauty.”
Throughout the whole show, “there were the ups and the downs like a rollercoaster, but it then leaves you safely on the ground with it’s over,” he said.
Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. The New York-based
artists have made it their mission to revive China’s 5,000 years of divinely-inspired culture that was destroyed by decades of communist rule and the regime’s spread of atheism.
Since its establishment in 2006, Shen Yun has since grown to include eight equally sized companies that tour the world simultaneously to showcase the beauty of pre-communist China.
What particularly impressed Mr. Carlton was “the beauty and the synchronicity of all things working together.”
“That has always fascinated me—when everybody is doing their part to build this grand
production. It’s amazing, and I love it. Also, I liked that I’m close to the orchestra,” he stated.
“I loved the music. Everybody’s playing a different instrument, and they have different moments where they come in that build the emotion in the music, which adds to the show. It would be wonderful to just listen to the music. This dance and this show—these performances have been around for 5,000 years, and it’s just amazing to me.”
According to the company’s website, Shen Yun’s
orchestra is the first in the world to permanently combine ancient Chinese and Western instruments.
Using classical Western orchestration as the foundation, Shen Yun’s
original compositions highlight traditional Chinese instruments such as the two-stringed erhu and the pipa—an ancient Chinese lute. Bringing to its audience the best of both worlds.
Mr. Carlton also loved the visuals of
the performance. He thought the combination of “stage performance with the digital production in the back was just incredible.”
“It’s fun because they show it a little bit, but they don’t overuse it. It’s just a little bit that adds magic to the show,” he said.
Though Mr. Charlton doesn’t know too much about Chinese history, he thought the artists’
mission to revive traditional culture is fantastic.
“I think bringing that tradition—with the sort of political conflict within
China and the people [right now]—it’s great to be able to bring that culture out into an area where it can flourish,” he expressed.
“[For example,] in the United States, where they are free to perform and speak through their performances.”
Reporting by Nancy Ma, Michael Huang, and Jennifer Tseng.
