MISSISSAUGA, Canada—With her daughter in tow, children’s television producer Michelle Melanson took in Shen Yun Performing Arts’ last performance in eastern Canada on Sunday and very much enjoyed the presentation, describing it as “colourful, wonderful, magical—really good family fun.”
“I loved the show actually, I thought it was very colourful and beautiful. I have adopted a little girl from China and she’s just turned four so I thought it very important to show her her culture and have an opportunity for her to see the dance and see if perhaps she would like to learn to dance,” said Ms. Melanson.
Ms. Melanson has worked on a long list of shows with Radical Sheep Productions, where she is currently VP of production and development, as well as Nelvana, and Kids CBC, where she was a senior producer.
She’s currently overseeing Season II of Disney Junior Canada’s popular animated series Stella and Sam. The cartoon was nominated for four Gemini Awards in 2011 and won the Fiction Rockie Award from the Banff Media Festival and the Grand Prize for Best Program in 2011 from Youth Media Alliance.
“I loved it. I thought it was really warm,” Ms. Melanson said of Shen Yun.
She was deeply impressed by the artistry of the performance.
“It’s really fascinating to see the amount of folk dance and culture and storytelling involved in the history of the dance. I thought that was the most interesting part.”
She said she was surprised by the true origins of the leaps, flips, and aerial movements performed by Shen Yun’s dancers.
“Unbelievable. I had no idea that acrobatics came from Chinese dancing. I thought that was a really important part, I just thought acrobatics was a separate thing. To see the folk dancing, to see the storytelling, and to see the tradition of the dance was beautiful, was amazing to see.”
She said she also enjoyed Shen Yun’s unique digital projections, animated backdrops that become magical windows to vast open grasslands or the stately elegance of Tang Dynasty pavilions.
“Amazing, it was really fun, it was a really fun way to do things,” said Ms. Melanson of the backdrops.
“I knew that it was animation, but I think some of the audience murmurs I could hear behind me actually thought the performers were like cabled behind the scenes and would actually uncable themselves and jump up. So I think it worked really, really well and I think the timing of the performers was amazing.”
She said she had never seen that interaction between technology and live dancing before.
“And I’ve seen a lot of shows on Broadway. I love to go to New York and see big shows, so I’ve usually seen things, you know, cabling over top, but never to use the backdrop and the animation like [Shen Yun] did, and again the timing of the performers was amazing, so that made it extra special.”
Chinese New Year
Sunday was also significant because it was the day before the Chinese New Year, the equivalent of Christmas Eve for over a million Chinese in Canada and a billion plus around the world. Ms. Melanson said Shen Yun was an ideal way to mark Chinese New Year’s Eve.
“It was great, I can’t wait to go home and eat Chinese food and have some mandarins and my daughter and I have stuffed all our red envelops to hand over tomorrow. It’s a really fun way to spend the weekend and get ready for Chinese New Year.”
“I think people love to see bright and pretty things, It does capture people’s eye and it’s spectacular. The costumes are gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. My daughter just kept saying ‘oh my gosh, they’re all Mulan.’ She thought it was all Mulan princesses and they were beautiful, and she just couldn’t get over it. She loved it.”
“I found some of the storytelling easy to follow and actually helped me with learning stories about China, so it was very good.”
When asked if she had anything to say to Shen Yun Performing Arts directly, she replied:
“You’re doing a beautiful job, it’s beautiful.”
“All I kept thinking was how many people it must take to put on a show like this, so congratulations on a beautiful job.”
“The orchestra is amazing, it’s such a large ensemble, much more than I was expecting,” she added.
The Shen Yun Performing Arts Orchestra has Chinese instruments lead the melodies over top of a philharmonic orchestra, producing a sound that conveys the sensibilities of China’s ancient culture and the grandeur of a western orchestra. With dancers, musicians and other staff, each of Shen Yun’s three companies number some 100 people.
“The production value is excellent,” Ms. Melanson said. “I think it’s a good family show and it’s a lot of fun. It’s colourful, and it’s cultural, and that’s important.”
Reporting by NTD Television and Matthew Little.
Shen Yun, based in New York, tours the world on a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture and stages performances of mainly classical Chinese dance. The International Company, one of Shen Yun’s three equally large companies, will next perform in the Detroit Opera House, Detroit, through Jan. 29.
For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
