HOUSTON—Rachel Weissblatt has been teaching dance all her life. On New Year’s Eve Mrs. Weissblatt and her husband attended Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company at the Houston Jones Hall for the Performing Arts.
“I absolutely loved the performance,” she said. “It was beautiful. The dancing was amazing. I absolutely loved the costumes—very rich and very authentic.”
Mrs. Weissblatt is from Israel and teaches Israeli folk dance.
Shen Yun presents Chinese classical dance, folk and ethnic dance, and music.
“The music is absolutely beautiful. I’ve been searching for a CD of music of tonight,” said Mrs. Weissblatt. She said she wished the Shen Yun Orchestra music was for sale at the performance.
“We really enjoyed it. We would like to see it again and again,” she said.
The couple usually celebrates the turn of the year with music, according to Mrs. Weissblatt. “My husband always likes to celebrate New Years’ Eve with a live band and dancing. The last two weeks I’ve been saying, ’the only thing I want for New Years is the performance that we saw tonight [Shen Yun].' This was a beautiful celebration of the New Year—thank you very much,” she said to her husband.
As many audience members do, she found the performance educational and well as beautiful. “I do love to see the different cultures through dance and music. This was very enriching to see the Chinese culture, music, costumes, and stories. We found it very rich and very interesting,” she said.
Mrs. Weissblatt said that she learned traditional Chinese history and stories, the poetry of the Chinese, and the style of movement.
As a dance teacher she was interested in the dance vocabulary and history of Chinese classical, ethnic and folk dance. “It was very interesting to hear [the emcees explain] because at first some of it looked to me like acrobatic, gymnastic, and ballet.”
She said it was very nice and intriguing to learn “that it wasn’t derived from gymnastics, that it came from original Chinese style of dancing, and I found it very interesting. It was good,” she said.
Reporting by Sunny Chen and Kelly Ni.
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. Shen Yun’s International Company will be performing in Houston through January 1. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
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