PROVIDENCE, R.I.—The weather was beautiful on Mother’s Day for the audience who came to see Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Providence Performing Arts Center on May 11.
Al Eregnard, a retired engineer, gave Linda McCabe a nice surprise to celebrate Mother’s Day.
Ms. McCabe, a healthcare supervisor, said, “I loved it. It was very cultural. I learned a lot about Chinese culture. I’ve been dying to see this for a long time, and he surprised me with tickets.”
Shen Yun’s many stories impressed Ms. McCabe, especially the dance that depicts the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners. She said she would check on Falun Dafa after watching the story of organ harvesting.
“I thought I was going to look it up for myself because I didn’t really know it was Falun Dafa. I’ve never heard of that. I’m kind of intrigued to look it up to see exactly what it means, and everything like that,” she said. “It was a learning experience as well as entertaining. I loved it.”
Mr. Eregnard said he liked “the story of the restaurant to show the defiance of communism, to live the life the way you want to live it, and not be suppressed.”
Shen Yun’s mission is to revive China’s rich traditional culture of 5,000 years before communism in an artistic way. Chinese culture is filled with moral messages.
“That’s one of the things that caught me at the end when they talked about atheism and evolution. It was interesting to see that perspective and how they presented it on stage,” Mr. Eregnard said. “I was very impressed, very impressed. They did a very good job of telling the story.”
The finale shows the Creator coming to Earth to save humanity from disaster, which gave him much to consider. He was impressed with “the final story, of course. It was wonderful to speak to the essence of what the belief is, you know, of mankind.”
The spiritual themes woven into the dances told of spirituality, such as the one where the general becomes a monk and becomes enlightened, “which I thought was excellent. That was great,” she said.
Many stories intrigued Ms. McCabe, especially those that depicted higher realms. She said, “There are quite a few, like I love the heavens. That’s beautiful. And I’m one for like angels. I’m really into all that stuff, so it was very intriguing. I liked it.”
Mr. Eregnard enjoyed the energy and skills of the dancers, especially how the performers danced in Water Sleeves “with the extended arm sleeves,” he said. “It just made it so much more wonderful to watch.”
Like many audiences, Ms. McCabe was in awe of the patented 3D technology projected on the backdrop.
“The backdrops—I thought that was amazing. Like a video, the backdrops were like … What do you call it? 3D? It was beautiful. I thought that was really kind of a nice added feature, the way they did that,” she said.
“Very impressive,” Mr. Eregnard said. “And the timing, for the characters to go from the stage onto the screen. The timing was wonderful. It matched perfectly, and it kept your interest because the timing was spot-on and it told the story properly.”
Ms McCabe was amazed at everything she saw on stage. “I love the dancers, the colors, the costumes—Everything was so vibrant and beautiful. I loved it,” she said.
“I have to echo her sentiment,” Mr. Eregnard said. “I’m an engineer, so the theater is not something that I go to often but this was a brilliant production. The colors, the dance and the folks that were performing. ... I did totally enjoy the show.”
