SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Is Very Colorful, Very Precise, and Very Good at Storytelling, Says Former Riverdance Dancer

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Shen Yun Is Very Colorful, Very Precise, and Very Good at Storytelling, Says Former Riverdance Dancer
Patrick O'Donnell enjoyed Shen Yun's evening show at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, in Vancouver, on March 20, 2024. Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times
VANCOUVER, Canada—Patrick O’Donnell, a former Riverdance dancer turned real estate agent, enjoyed Shen Yun Performing Arts’ evening show on March 20 at Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
“It was a beautiful show. It’s very colorful, very precise, and [the dancers are] very good at storytelling,” he said. “The music was lovely, and the costumes and the intonation of the dancers were lovely. It was very well done.”

Riverdance is an iconic production of mainly traditional Irish music and dance. An Irish dancer of 40 years, Mr. O’Donnell has a strong appreciation for the arts. He noted happily that Shen Yun shared some “very good similarities” with performances he’s done in the past.

“[The dancing] was very good. I think it’s very important that the male and female dancers have equal billing and time on stage. It’s lovely. Both were equally as good,” he explained.

“There wasn’t any one standout star. The dancers were very, very compatible.”

Based in New York, Shen Yun artists are highly trained in classical Chinese dance. Dating back thousands of years, it is one of the most athletic and expressive art forms in the world.

According to the company’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.

For Mr. O’Donnell, it was impossible to pick out a favorite program from the show because “all the numbers had different merits.”

“I think all of the numbers were beautifully done; no one number was better than the other. They were all good.”

The mission of Shen Yun is to revive China’s 5,000 years of divinely inspired culture that has been lost over decades of communist rule.

Mr. O’Donnell believes that people’s love of their culture is a shared theme across many art forms. He has a deep appreciation for the beautiful message that Shen Yun conveys.

“People are very proud of their culture and they want people to understand their culture. They all give the same message, and it’s a beautiful message. It’s worldwide.”

He agreed that Shen Yun’s mission to preserve traditional values is very necessary because “it’s important for the children of today to understand where they came from.”

“The discipline that it takes to be the best you can be at what you do, an understanding of where you came from, your history, the oppressions, the values, and understanding how [to] survive in today’s world—these are very big things,” he said.
“Everything has an inspiration, whether it’s dance or music. [Shen Yun] is a very good show.”
Reporting by Sherry Dong and Jennifer Tseng.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
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