SAN DIEGO—Jessica Wanamaker, a VP in biotech sales, thoroughly enjoyed her time at Shen Yun’s matinee on Jan. 21.
Sitting in the audience of the San Diego Civic Theatre, she was very happy to have gotten “amazing seats right up front.”
“We had been trying to get tickets ourselves but weren’t able to. [Our friends] were very, very gracious to give them to us,” she said, adding that the dances were “just stunning.”
“We just came back from Japan and got to go to a Kabuki theater to see their version of their historical dance. I think [today] the beauty of the
fluid dresses, the choreography, and the
stories were unlike anything we’ve seen before,” Ms. Wanamaker stated.
“The storylines were obviously very historically based. It was really interesting to see it from that perspective and see it done in a visual way as opposed to just being told the story.”
Shen Yun was established in 2006 and is the world’s top classical Chinese dance and music company. The mission of these
New York-based artists is to revive China’s 5,000 years of divinely inspired culture that were destroyed by decades of communist rule.
For its 2024 touring season, Shen Yun’s eight equally sized companies are scheduled to perform in over 200 cities worldwide.
Ms. Wanamaker, who also plays the flute, loved Shen Yun’s live orchestra. She was especially amazed by the classical Chinese instruments included in the performance, such as the two-stringed erhu and the
pipa—a Chinese lute.
“I was quite impressed. They did a phenomenal job,” she said.
“I’ve never seen that
instrument before, and I’d always been curious about what [instrument] the music was made from. So, it was awesome to get to see it live.”
According to the company’s website, Shen Yun’s orchestra is the first in the world to combine ancient Chinese and Western instruments permanently.
Seamlessly blending the grandeur of a Western orchestra with the ethereal beauty of Chinese melodies, Shen Yun
musicians produce a profound emotional range that captures the depth of the human experience.
Though this was Ms. Wanamaker’s first time attending Shen Yun, she’d absolutely be recommending the show to her friends and family. “It’s very compelling and very interesting,” she expressed.
Reporting by Tina Deng and Jennifer Tseng.
