COSTA MESA, Calif.—Although most of the world sees China and thinks of its communist regime, the reality is, the Chinese Communist Party rule is only two percent of the total Chinese history. From legends of Creation to the Qing Dynasty, China was once known as “the Land of the Divine.”
“I didn’t know about the spiritual aspect before the show. So I’m definitely learning about the divinity and what the Creation story is in Chinese culture. So that was all very new to me,” said Jeff Dixon, an IT executive.
Mr. Dixon and his wife Jill saw
Shen Yun Performing Arts performance at Segerstrom Center for the Arts on March 2.
With 5,000 years of history to draw from, New York-based Shen Yun puts on a
new production every year so that the countless stories China’s vast civilization can have its moment under the spotlight. Shen Yun is the world’s premier
classical Chinese dance company, using this ancient art form to tell these stories.
“I thought it was great. I think it was phenomenal they are doing that. I think dance is a great way to sort of brighten out culture, and I thought they did phenomenal job doing that,” said Mr. Dixon.
One of the dance stories takes the audience back to the period of the
Three Kingdoms.
“I like the story. I like the way the set changed a lot. I like the costumes in that one quite a bit. And I like the battle scene, sort of interesting to see how they integrated dance with fighting,” expressed Mr. Dixon. “Not only that, but also the costumes are so, so good at bringing out the culture of the country. Another example of that was the one in the Forbidden City, and all the women wore
platform shoes. I thought it was so cool to see how they integrated that costume design into dance.”
Apart from dances of ancient China, Shen Yun also enacts stories from present-day China. One story showed Falun Dafa
practitioners in China are standing by their faith and not backing down the face of oppression by the Chinese communist regime.
“I was really impressed by the Falun Dafa story. It was powerful. I thought it was a good enactment of current events,” said Mrs. Dixon.
Shen Yun’s
digital backdrop allows effortless change of scene designs. Use of this technology is Shen Yun’s very own patent.
“I’ve never seen such a technologically integrative performance. I thought that was very wonderful. I’ve never seen that before in the United States,” said Mrs. Dixon.
Reporting by Alice Sun and Maria Han.
