INCHEON, South Korea—After watching Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company at the Incheon Culture and Arts Center on April 13, Ms. An Mi-Gyeong was almost in disbelief. “The background animation is beyond impressive. I am tremendously overwhelmed!” Ms. An is professor at the Department of Life Music at JEI College who specializes in piano.
Shen Yun’s backdrop is a patented technology. The management of Radio City in New York City once invited Shen Yun to design the background for its Christmas party.
Shen Yun’s goal is to revive China’s divine culture and create the aesthetic trend in art performance. The stories reflect the basic universal values of mankind. Ms. An could see it in the performance. She said, “The basic values that mankind pursues, forbearance and kindness, are blended into Shen Yun’s entire program.”
Ms. An commented on the dance An Unexpected Encounter. “The program shows Falun Gong practitioners suffering enormous tribulations in a non-democratic country. I felt it. The performance makes me feel that kind of pain as I watched it!”
‘A brand new beginning awaiting us’
Mr. Kim Seong-Su watched Shen Yun Performing Arts’ first performance in Incheon on April 13. This is his second year watching the performance and Mr. Kim proudly said, “Many of my friends watched it many times and we will continue to come back to see the show. The energy tonight is really strong; it made me feel that I should begin to practice cultivation right away. I felt that way before.” Mr. Kim is the president of SmartExe.
Mr. Kim said he has seen performances from art groups from China in the past. “The performances from mainland China look very mechanical. The most valuable part of Shen Yun’s performance is that it presents the spiritual level of man,” he said.
“The performance brings Chinese history on the stage in a systematic and ordered way. It is such a wonderful flow that I felt like I was in a dream. I am most impressed by the program that shows Emperor Tang Xuanzong visiting a celestial world.
“A solo vocalist sang about not being too attached to money and fame, which made me think a lot as I am a businessman. Tonight I realized that I must live for a better purpose.
“The last scene of the performance gave me the feeling that a new epoch had been created. I was enlightened to the fact that all the orders in this world are the process of creation, destruction, and creation again. This show gave me a refreshing feeling that there is a brand new beginning awaiting us.”
Read the original Chinese articles. [1] [2]
Reporting by Choe Jeong-Eun, Seo Hyo-Bin and Hsin-Yi Lin
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
