MONTREAL—Mr. Carl Larochelle, managing director of a Montreal company, thinks that Shen Yun is a “beautiful show” that shows the full Chinese history, and “demonstrates well the rich culture of China.”
That’s why he came to watch the performance of Shen Yun for the fifth year on Saturday Dec. 5 at Place des Arts.
“I have lived in China for four years, so I have a deep connection with the Chinese people and history,” said Mr. Larochelle.
“I fell in love with a China that no longer exists today. It’s very hard to find the cultural part of China. So coming back to this kind of show makes it special and reminds me of the vast richness of the cultural part in China,” he said.
Based in New York, Shen Yun has a mission to revive 5,000 years of China’s divinely inspired culture, according to its website. Each year, the Chinese dance and music company presents an entirely new lineup of dances, songs, and musical scores.
“It’s a beautiful show. Every year it changes, that is very true, it’s different. I’ve come here for five years. It’s different every year,” Mr. Larochelle said about the performance.
“Choreography is excellent. And the artists are very dedicated people, they’re passionate, and you can see that there’s not one glitch.”
Shen Yun also shows the glorious culture of China as it once was, Mr. Larochelle said.
“It really shows how deep-rooted people were back then, and how values were different at the time, and how much evolved were the people of each dynasty. So, that’s very special,” he said.
“Chinese people are special. They’re smart. They’re the inventors of many ideas and many things, and I think the show in general shows [that through the] choreography and the way people dance and the music, it just shows an image of people that are deep.
“It’s an image of people that are true. It’s an image of people that are compassionate. You may not necessarily find it today, but I think back then they had a tighter bond to the family, to the roots, to the culture, to the history.”
Shen Yun, Mr. Larochelle said, is bringing back China’s true traditions. The performance shows the cultural, historical, as well as the spiritual side of China, he said.
Adding that he'll be coming back to see the show again next year, Mr. Larochelle also said that he particularly enjoyed the dances presented in the show.
Shen Yun features mainly classical Chinese dance, and also presents China’s numerous ethnic and folk dance styles.
An art form thousands of years old, classical Chinese dance has been passed down continuously within imperial palaces and ancient Chinese theatre and opera, soaking up profound wisdom from every era and dynasty, to become a complete system of dance today, according to the Shen Yun website.
Mr. Larochelle also greatly enjoyed the solo performance of the Chinese two-stringed instrument, the erhu.
“It helps you calm and relax and find your feelings deep inside. I really appreciate it,” he said about the erhu performance by Xiaochun Qi.
Reporting by NTD Television and Omid Ghoreishi.
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. Shen Yun’s New York Company will play five shows in Montreal Jan. 3-6 and one show in Quebec City Jan. 8 before going on to Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, and Toronto in its tour of eastern Canada. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
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