HARTFORD, Conn.—The plum blossom is very special to the Chinese people. A small, delicate flower, it blooms in winter; nature’s harshest season. “It’s about bravery,” said Jeana Earn, a funeral director. “The plum blossom defies winter and blooms, with the promise of spring on the way.”
Shen Yun Performing Arts brought the beauty of the plum blossom to the stage at The Bushnell, Hartford, in a flurry of pink and gracefulness. Reviving traditional Chinese culture through classical Chinese dance, song, and music, Shen Yun had the audience on their feet after a feast of performances Thursday night.
Ms. Earn attended the show with her boyfriend Paul Reale, a bank manager.
“It was interesting to know that a lot of the moves that they did, the techniques, were actually not taken from acrobatics—they’re actually from their culture. Like the tumbling and twisting and the jumping and stuff like that,” Mr. Reale said after the show. “And I thought that was really neat. I had thought it was a combination of Western dance, but it wasn’t at all; it came from their culture. So I thought that was really interesting.”
The New York-based Shen Yun performers are trained in classical Chinese dance, the most systematic and comprehensive dance system in the world. It stems from ancient China and includes a huge variety of movements, from delicate hand gestures, to difficult flips, turns, and leaps.
“I liked the monk scene where he was fending off the bad guys. I thought that was really cool how they incorporated not only dancing, but also, it looked like some kind of martial arts as well. I thought that was really interesting,” Mr. Reale said.
Shen Yun was wonderful, Ms. Earn said. “The dancers were exquisite, so it was very enjoyable, I would recommend it.”
With three companies on tour simultaneously, Shen Yun will round out the month with performances in five more U.S. cities as well as Sydney, Australia, and Frankfurt, Germany. For more information, please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
