“Absolutely beautiful. I came here expecting to see beautiful dances and beautiful costumes and scenery, and it’s so much more,” Ms. Riggs said at Atlanta Symphony Hall with her family the afternoon of Dec. 24.
Shen Yun, founded in New York in 2006, is the world’s top classical Chinese dance company. Many of the founding artists had left communist China in search of freedom of belief, which Ms. Riggs said she only learned during the performance, and appreciated.She commended the performers’ interaction with the unique and patented backdrop technology, and the work they put into creating the two-hour show.
“It’s absolutely gorgeous ... They are absolutely amazing. I can’t imagine all of the hours that went into getting ready for these types of performances, and great job! Bravo!”
“I have a new appreciation for the Chinese culture that I didn’t know about before this,” she said.
Ms. Riggs said she learned about the history of China’s 5,000 years of divinely inspired civilization, and how faith had been stamped out by the Chinese Communist Party. She also learned that Shen Yun’s artists are people of faith who sought to express their beliefs freely beyond China.
Also in the audience was Pierre Hardy, a manager at HP, who had “always been a fan of traditional, pre-communism Chinese culture.”
“And the best way to see it firsthand is to come to the show,” said Mr. Hardy, who attended the Atlanta matinee after having learned about Shen Yun through The Epoch Times.“I want to find out more about it,” said Mr. Hardy, who said he'd purchased a copy of “Zhuan Falun,” the main text of Falun Gong, after the performance.
The practice was made public in China in 1992, and in under a decade, between 70 million and 100 million Chinese had taken up the spiritual practice. China before communism was a deeply spiritual nation, with spiritual disciplines like Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism forming the bedrock of its culture.
Mr. Hardy said he certainly felt this theme in the performance.
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