MONTREAL—Mayor Denis Lapointe attended Shen Yun Performing Arts at Place des Arts on Sunday afternoon and was convinced that the premier classical Chinese dance company was succeeding in its mission to revive one of the world’s oldest cultures.
“It is extraordinary,” said Mr. Lapointe of Sallaberry-de-Valleyfield, a town with a population of 40,000 southwest of Montreal.
Mr. Lapointe said that from looking at the advertisement posters he had imagined what the colours in the show might be in real life, but was still taken aback when presented with the actual colours, lighting, and dancing of Shen Yun.
“There is an extraordinary strength which explodes each time there are group movements. It is marvellous. We ate and drank colour and beauty all afternoon,” he said.
“The actors, the dancers, who seem to float on the floor ... they don’t touch the floor, they are in the air. It takes such dexterity and imagination to conceive this show, to bring all these people to work together.”
Mr. Lapointe praised the performers, “There is a lot of effort, they must work daily, they must deliver energy. These people must be in shape mentally and physically to be able to deliver such a show.”
“They reveal to us what China is, what Chinese people are. These are people who persevere, people who are able to work. The result we have today, it is all that,” he said. “Marvellous, extraordinary, instructive.”
Mr. Lapointe noted that the images from Shen Yun’s digitally projected animated backdrops were still playing in his mind after the show.
“It repositions us in a China that we don’t always know. We know the landscapes, the big buildings, the big towns and all that, but when we go back to the countryside, we see those landscapes and we learn that these landscapes exist. That is what is marvellous.”
Among the dozens of scenes created for each year’s show are open grasslands in Mongolia, Tang Dynasty pavilions, dusty battlegrounds, and the solemn majesty of heavenly paradises.
Shen Yun tours with an orchestra that takes classical Western instruments as its base while traditional Chinese instruments lead the melodies. The resulting sound conveys the grandeur of a Western orchestra and the distinct sensibilities of China’s ancient civilization.
“The orchestra is marvelous,” said Mr. Lapointe.
“Instruments of the past, instruments of today, are mixed with the melodies of the past and modern melodies. Thus, as it is said, the past can be reborn, and the great principles, the great musical values can be reborn and modernize themselves. And there always remains an extraordinary background which is what we saw and heard today.”
Shen Yun seeks to revive 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese culture—rooted in deep spirituality and values like filial piety, reverence for the divine, compassion, and wisdom—which has been almost entirely lost in China after 60 years of communist rule.
Mr. Lapointe expressed appreciation for Shen Yun’s endeavour to bring about a renaissance of genuine traditional Chinese culture.
“It is incredible to imagine that during 5,000 years, these traditions were maintained and that today they are expressed through colour, through movements, through music, songs, through texts,” he said.
He noted that, while China’s rich heritage suffered a systematic campaign, the West has also seen its own values erode.
“The problem that we often have here is that we to leave these traditions by the wayside rather than enrich them and bring them into this modern world,” he said.
“We forget where we came from and if we don’t know where we came from anymore, we don’t know where to go. So here, what we see in this show is precisely these origins, people have kept these origins, the traditions of their village, of their town, and they grow with time and finally, these beautiful traditions transform, modernize, but stay human.”
Sunday was Shen Yun’s last show in Montreal, but when it returns next year, Mayor Lapointe said he'll encourage others to come.
“I will tell all my people, all those I work with: ‘listen, next year it is part of your cultural menu, you must go see this.’”
Reporting by Nathalie Dieul and Matthew Little
Shen Yun has three equally large companies touring the world with an all-new program each year. Each company has its own orchestra and vocal soloists. Shen Yun’s International Company will perform in Kitchener, Ontario, Jan. 10-11 before heading to Toronto for five shows at Sony Centre for the Performing Arts.
For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3WTKCEA4tE[/video]
