“I really enjoyed it tremendously, and I recommend everybody to see it because the art and all the movement and everything—it must take them like months and months to train and be so coordinated,” she shared. “It is just fantastic. I really loved it.”
From the vibrant costumes to the dancers’ grace, Ms. Bakir enjoyed every element of the performance.
“It’s amazing, the colors, and every time you see a different outfit on the dancers,” she said. “All the embroidery, it is just fantastic.”
“The movement, the songs, the two singers, the pianist, the musician, it’s amazing. The lady with the [erhu] is amazing.”
If recordings weren’t prohibited, Ms. Bakir said she would have loved to use Shen Yun’s music for meditation.
“I love the music. [traditional China] had beautiful art—that’s what I love about it. I told myself I should enjoy and just relax because I never relax. It’s very relaxing music.”
Summing up her experience, Ms. Bakir said Shen Yun is “very nice.”
Ms. Wahab also had a lovely time at the performance. She appreciated the live orchestra and the colorful costumes, as well as Shen Yun’s bilingual hosts, who gave a brief introduction before each piece to help audiences unfamiliar with Chinese history and culture to better understand the stories.
“I loved [the story] showing the idea of helping people in need, even if those people are tricking you. There was the person who was pretending to be poor and in need of food, and then they found out that [he was lying], but the people still helped him regardless. I thought that was really nice too.”
Every piece was so beautiful that Ms. Wahab found it impossible to pick a favorite. A very memorable one for her was the piece where the dancers’ long sleeves billowed and flowed like the gentle movement of water on stage.
“The water sleeves—I just thought it was so beautiful and fluid, the way that you could see the fabric move. Every time there would be a new performance, I would look at the color combination and say, ‘Wait, this one is my favorite,’ then another one would come, and I'd be like, ‘No, this one is my favorite.’”
“I love that part of the story when it was talking about [what’s important] is not the worldly things, because at the end of the day, it’s about the Creator and the divine, and how this [world] is just a temporary stage, and about reincarnation and the divine coming to earth,” she shared.
“I thought that was so important, showing the modern-day people on their phones and how that contrasts with the tradition—There’s something much greater than all of this [physical world], and people forget about that.”
