MINNEAPOLIS—When the curtain went up, Tim Stepp froze. The color caught him.
“The colors were amazing,” the IT manager said at the Orpheum Theatre on Feb. 20. From the silk costumes to the ornate hair ornaments, makeup, the scenery projected behind the dancers, it all amazed him.
The whole experience gripped him emotionally. As he watched the facial expressions of the dancers and fear, compassion, happiness, and sadness flitted across their faces, he felt every emotion in turn.
Mr. Stepp had been watching Shen Yun Performing Arts, a classical Chinese dance company that aims to bring the beauty—both spiritual and aesthetic beauty—of 5,000 years of Chinese culture to life.
Classical Chinese dance is the perfect medium to explore the connection between inner spirituality and its outer manifestation. The dance grew over those same thousands of years, through times when meditation was practiced by the whole of society, from the emperor on down.
And the dance itself is based on the movement following the inner idea or emotion of the dancer. The spirit precedes the movement.
The senior management consultant for Pragmatek, an IT company, Mr. Stepp said he believes the culture he sees Shen Yun present is divinely inspired.
Having recently gotten in touch with his own faith, Mr. Stepp found the very similar beliefs in a higher power that Buddhism and Christianity share inspired him.
He was saddened to learn, though, that meditation and faith were not allowed under the atheistic communist regime in China today. So he felt pleased that Shen Yun was keeping this ancient alive culture, “especially for the youth of the world to know.
“I mean, 5,000 years! In the U.S. we have 250 years of history. China is 5,000! It’s amazing, absolutely amazing. I love it,” he said.
Reporting by Sally Sun and Sharon Kilarski
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit Shen Yun Performing Arts.
Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
