NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Business owner Jim Beyer and Alicia Barker, a classically trained ballerina, attended Shen Yun’s matinee at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.
“It’s very enlightening and culturally diverse,” he said. “I love Chinese culture. It’s a beautiful culture, very rich in history.”
Mr. Beyer thinks Shen Yun’s focus on culture is very important because “people have a perception of [Chinese] politics here in the U.S., but [they’ve] lost sight of China’s rich and deep culture.”
In fact, that’s what brought the couple to Shen Yun, “to just reconnect with the culture,” Ms. Barker added.
“The steps here are foreign to me. It’s so different. It’s been a great experience,” she expressed.
“I love it. It feels more delicate, and I feel like it’s finer. There’s attention to detail in the moves with classical ballet, but everything [here] is smaller and more delicate.”
According to Shen Yun’s website, the classical Chinese dance we see in China today is heavily mixed with military and modern dance styles. Only at Shen Yun can you find it performed in its purest form—the way it was originally passed down through the generations.
“It’s beautiful, it’s gorgeous,” she said. “The music is peaceful. Just hearing and feeling it— because we’re so close, we can feel some of it.”
Last but not least, Ms. Barker would like to thank Shen Yun performers for “all you’re doing to help educate us on your culture and for working so hard to put on a beautiful production.”
Susan Bromaghim, a retired interior designer, and Ward Skip were also enjoying the matinee.
“It’s amazing how similar some of our culture is. I just thought we were far more different as people than we really are,” she stated.
“The beauty of the dance. It made me teary. It was so beautiful, it really was. Just watching these human bodies so elegantly perform—It just overwhelmed me initially. Wow.”
For its 2024 touring season, Shen Yun’s eight equally-sized companies will be performing in over 200 cities across five continents. The company can be expected to return with a brand-new set of choreography and musical compositions every year.
