VIENNA, Austria—Shen Yun played its second performance in Vienna on April 5, with many enthusiastic audience members in attendance.
Mr. Makra, an artist, painter, and photographer has been very interested in Chinese painting as well as Chinese culture. He had been given a scholarship from a Chinese firm, which was terminated due to the current financial crisis. He was in the audience during the evening performance in Vienna’s Stadthalle. As an artist, he was deeply impressed by the beauty of the performance.
Mr. Makra said, “It was as if the heavens opened. It is as if one remembers faintly that one has seen the heavens. This was my impression.”
He added that Shen Yun “spoke to all the senses. I believe that beauty is the highest truth. I think that this show is a hymn to beauty.
“I believe that Asian culture is different. They view beauty differently. Beauty is an expression of energy, inspiration, and spirituality. This is what touched me the most.”
He found the spirituality that runs throughout Shen interesting: “It brought me closer to Chinese spirituality, perhaps also the world. I felt that. This special interpretation of Chinese mythology was very well presented. The sensual and graceful beauty could also be a message to the world, just as Goethe said, ‘Art is the sister of religion.’ This was very well done here.
“When this awakens in China it will result in a peaceful turn. … If one changes from the innermost thoughts and by identifying with it, reconnecting with ones roots and so on, then a peaceful turn will happen. This is what touched me very much and what gave me great happiness. I’m very grateful that I saw this today.”
Shen Yun aspires to revive the 5,000-year history and culture of China, which was suppressed during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the performing arts and much of the cultural foundation that makes up China was lost during that time.
Mr. Makra added that this cultural foundation is “very important, especially in today’s times. This is what I felt to be the strongest message—just this form, this really intensive form of grace.”
He said that in Asian cultures in the past, there was more harmony between the sexes, which was reflected in their arts and dance.
“In Asia, the man polarizes more, and in Europe, men are like women and women are like men. In Asia, it is that the man governs and not the woman; it is like in China that the woman is Yin and the man is Yang. At least it was like this in the past. I don’t know what is going on today,” he said.
Speaking of the dance Heaven Awaits Us Despite Persecution, he said, “That was very brave. I find it very brave that the problems are represented by these scenes. I know about it [the persecution of Falun Gong in China].”
In this dance, a father who practices Falun Gong, a mediation practice that the Chinese regime has banned, is persecuted for his perseverance in the practice. As a result, he dies and his family is distraught. However, the end of the dance conveys a message of hope.
Shen Yun uses a visually dynamic backdrop that features an interplay between the performers and the backdrop. As a painter, Mr. Makra particularly enjoyed this aspect of the show: “Very beautiful! Very beautiful! I found especially the last picture on the backdrop very successful. It was fantastic, just fantastic!
“Because it was not just symbolic, but something universal. I found the last picture as the most modern of all and the most beautiful among all.” The last performance features a grand culmination of the 5,000 years of Chinese culture.
He said that next year it is “for certain” that he will return to see the show again.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Shen Yun Performing Arts 2009 World Tour. For more information please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
