MISSISSUAGA, Canada—David Harvey, owner of the Appliance Depot, said Shen Yun staged a “fantastic” performance on Saturday afternoon at the Living Arts Centre.
“It’s a beautiful performance, colourful, such talent, such emotion … really impressive,” he said
Mr. Harvey thought Shen Yun was also informative, especially two numbers depicting the persecution of Falun Dafa in China today.
“I think persecution in China is almost a norm so it doesn’t surprise me that a group of people—and I don’t know enough about Falun Dafa—but a group of people like this, peace-loving people with different views from what the government wants to ram down people’s throats, is not allowed there. But how they portray it here, I think it’s fantastic,” he said.
Falun Dafa, a traditional Chinese meditation system based on the cultivation of truthfulness compassion and tolerance, has been banned in China since 1999 and its followers subjected to intense repression.
Also at the show that afternoon was Paul Bonenfant, a professor of computer programming at Sheridan College.
“It was very entertaining, very colourful,” he said of the show.
Mr. Bonenfant said he particularly enjoyed the variety in the performance, its bel canto soloists, and the large-scale group choreography.
“What I really liked too is the backdrops. The people appeared as if they were going to the heavens to meet the Buddhas and their ancestors,” he said.
Shen Yun’s digital projections provide animated backdrops to extend the stage for each dance. The New York-based company also tours with an orchestra that takes a philharmonic orchestra as its base but includes traditional Eastern instruments leading the melodies.
“It was good. I enjoyed the music. [There are] some instruments that you don’t hear every day, like the glockenspiel (xylophone), and there’s some more Chinese-based instruments. That was really nice. I enjoyed that,” Mr. Bonenfant said.
With him was his wife Chih-Chi Lee, who works for the Community Care Access Centre as manager of information technology and business application.
She said her first time to see Shen Yun was a pleasant surprise because it was both glamorous and told a lot of stories through the dances.
“I was quite happy about it,” she said.
Shen Yun stages many story-based dances, some taken from legendary historical figures, others based on beloved Chinese literary tales. In this year’s program, the dance How the Monkey King Came To Be tells the origin of a favourite based on the Chinese classic Journey to the West.
Ms. Lee, who is from Taiwan, pointed to her daughter and said that at her age, around 7 or 8, she remembers hearing many stories about the Monkey King.
“It feels like I’m back when I was young. I didn’t think they would have those stories until I saw the program,” she said.
She was also impressed by Shen Yun’s dancers.
“They have flexibility like there’s no tomorrow,” she said. “There’s a lot of really nice movement that’s unbelievable, especially the last part of the show. After the intermission, there was a lot of really high-skilled twirling and flipping and stuff like that. I haven’t seen those for a while. … It made me remember that culture that I almost forgot because I’ve been here for a long time.”
New York-based Shen Yun has three equally large companies touring the world. International Companywill stage two more shows in Mississauga before leaving Canada until it returns for shows in the West in the spring.
For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
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