TOLEDO, Ohio—Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company delighted audience members at the Stranahan Theater on March 18. Mr. Peter Ujvaja, County Administrator at Lucas County joined them in welcoming the show’s return to Toledo. “It is just fantastic!” he said. “We are honored to have you all in Lucas County and in Toledo.”
Mr. Ujvaja was unanimously elected Lucas County’s head administrator after serving Toledo for many years as State Representative.
He thanked the artists of Shen Yun for returning to Toledo, and said, “You brought a 5,000 year tradition to our community and it is well known in America. So to be able to share the culture, the music, the dance, the arts, the crafts with everyone is a great opportunity and we’re very, very pleased to have you here.”
At the heart of a Shen Yun performance is classical Chinese dance, both one of the most comprehensive and hardest dance systems to master in the world, according to Shen Yun’s website. Mr. Ujvaja expressed his amazement. “It is just fantastic! Phenomenal! The discipline and the unison with which they are performing is just fantastic.
The people of China have long held that their magnificent culture was a gift from the heavens. Artists cultivated virtue because they felt that to create art worthy of the divine, there must first be inner beauty and purity, according to the Shen Yun website.
He was moved by the depth of the stories told through the performances, and said, “You can feel the story in the way that the dancers dance. It is really something very unique, something special.”
Mr. Ujvaja was pleased to learn that Shen Yun’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of divinely inspired traditional Chinese culture, sharing this precious gift with the world. “Well, one thing is that it is important to know your history, your stories. To be able to share that with others that is very, very important.”
He said he would urge others to experience the show for themselves. “I would call it a beautiful performance—a great tradition.
Reporting by NTD Television and Jeanmarie Lunsford
Shen Yun Performing Arts, based in New York, tours the world on a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture. Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company will next perform at the Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington, D.C., from March 21 to April 1.
For more information visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
