LOS ANGELES—Sometimes we may look at the world and see things in decline, but then find some new light of hope and restoration. Craig Huxley, film producer, musician, and inventor of instruments extraordinaire, had just that sense when he saw Shen Yun Performing Arts on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 14, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with his daughter, Fiona.
“I was very pleased to see the positive message of the show, and how there was the beauty of the dancers, the colors, and the appreciation of the ancient wisdom,” Mr. Huxley said.
With the goal of reviving China’s traditional culture, New York-based Shen Yun has sent three companies across the globe, showing people the beauty and virtues of the world’s oldest, continuous civilization.
Shen Yun is doing this through the medium of classical Chinese dance, an art form passed down and perfected across dynasties and millennia in the land known as the “Celestial Empire.”
Mr. Huxley is interested in preserving the resources of our planet. He is the owner and producer for GoPlanet, which creates documentaries, many about saving wildlife, such as tigers, gorillas, and whales. “I produce these movies that have a positive message about appreciating our wildlife and saving them too,” he said.
“We’ve created all these videos to have a positive message, and probably in the whole word we need that, and certainly in America. We need more love between father and daughter, and more appreciation for the wildlife and the oceans, between different countries, we need appreciation of the ancient wisdom of Daoism and Buddhism.”
The Music of Shen Yun
In addition to his career in the film industry, Mr. Huxley also has a music career.
But he has also developed new instruments, such as the Blaster Beam, which was used in Star Trek 1, 2, and 3, as well as many hit Michael Jackson songs.
So he knows something about music and instruments.
“I love interesting, new, different sounds,” he said. “What [they’ve] shown here, is combining the two, the traditional instruments, and I thought that was very cool, very interesting.”
“I liked hearing the erhu, [two-stringed Chinese instrument] with the piano. That was extraordinary. I’m going to use that on a new movie that I’m producing right now. I’ve decided that I want to get that instrument!” he said excitedly, about a new movie he is working on with NASA about the trip to Mars, which will come out this year.
“I’m very stimulated by what [they’ve] done here by combining the instruments. Very lovely,” he said.
There was also one particular instrument that caught his ear: the suona, a “unique, playful, and distinctively Chinese-sounding” double-reed instrument, according to the Shen Yun website.
“It was great,” he said of the suona. “It was exciting. Made me think of the wild jungle.”
As someone interested in improving society, he was happy to see that people brought their children to the Shen Yun performance. He said he did the same thing with his daughter when she was young.
“It’s nice that people were bringing children here. I’m a big fan of that. That’s a compliment I have for the show,” he said.
In looking at the state of the world, he compared things to a book written by a different Huxley, Brave New World. “He [Aldous Huxley] predicted the danger of too much drugs and too much false, circus-like attention. That people would lose the ancient wisdom from that. And this is what we are having to fight today,” he said.
And this why he sees Shen Yun as an important bulwark for society and protecting humanity’s culture.
“Shen Yun was a good demonstration of a positive message that pushes against the stupidity of modern-day nonsense,” said Mr. Huxley with a laugh.
Reporting by Jenny Liu and Ben Bendig.
Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company will next perform in San Diego Jan 19-22.
For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3WTKCEA4tE[/video]
