MELBOURNE—Gaynor Branton, a business development manager, was thrilled with the premier performance of the Shen Yun Performing Arts Company show at Melbourne’s magnificent Regent Theatre on March, 1.
Ms. Branton’s hobby is photography and this passion of hers only recently brought her into contact with the Shen Yun Performing Arts company. She was initially so astounded that she did some research on them, and came to the show with huge expectations.
“I thought it was just going to be so momentous and affecting, but to actually see the performance–it was the costumes, the scenery, the music and the dedication and talent of the dancers. And it just all culminates ... and there is this spectacular beautiful event. And the singing, the words, it was just absolutely beautiful, and the way it was presented as well.
“The presenters were really amazing; they just walk you through this experience and it’s just wonderful, one performance after another. It’s amazing!”
Shen Yun’s one-of-a-kind orchestra, with its all-original compositions, blends East and West like no other. The distinctly Chinese sound of ancient instruments are bathed in a rich sea of Western strings, percussion, woodwinds, and brass. The result–two great classical music traditions producing one fresh, unexpected sound.
Ms. Branton thought the performance as a whole was very moving and inspirational. “It’s just so evocative and so inspirational. The music backs up everything else—it pulls the performance out and it just gives you such a feeling of inspiration. It’s the only word for it. The dancers, they were just absolutely wonderful. The dedication, the time that they must put into the performances.
“And the dancers, they’re almost ‘elevating’, it’s almost as if ... , sometimes you’re watching them and think—these people are weightless. They’re just in the air and they’re weightless. It’s just absolutely beautiful!”
Shen Yun’s artists take to heart an ancient Chinese belief that to create true art there must first be inner beauty. Many Shen Yun performers practise a self-cultivation discipline, called Falun Gong, which is based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. These values form the basis of their striving to bring out the best that is part of our human inheritance.
Ms. Branton, as well as many other spectators, felt this mysterious and moving energy as an amazing experience.
“Absolutely. And there were certainly some dancers that just ooze ... it just comes through to you, absolutely. I’m almost speechless. It really affects you.”
Shen Yun Performing Arts creates and performs works that centre upon the true, divinely bestowed culture of humankind. Ms. Branton was saddened by the fact that this 5,000-year-old divinely inspired culture, was destroyed under the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘Cultural Revolution’.
”I just think it is so, so sad, very sad. But they’re taking a message, the message came through to me and the message is to the world—it [Shen Yun] was inspirational, it was peaceful. There is a message there as well of beauty and the words to the songs.”
“There is a message in there that just moves you completely. And the colour was just outstanding; the costumes, their colour, ... they were just beautiful.”
Reporting by NTD Television and Ron Champagne.
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. The International Company is in Melbourne now for a six-show run till Sunday, March 6. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
