SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Was ‘Splendor in a Higher Realm’ Says Costume Designer

Jan 28, 2023

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Michelle Covington, costume designer, and Mark Covington, physician, left the theater after Shen Yun Performing Arts feeling renewed.

“[You felt] elevated to a different level than the one we live on in everyday life,” said Mrs. Covington at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts after the matinee on Jan. 28. “It takes you above, you know. The clouds—take us up to the clouds!”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission to revive China’s 5,000 years of civilization. Audience members often leave the performance feeling hope and renewal, to which Shen Yun has credited its traditional approach. Following in the footsteps of the great artists and thinkers of antiquity, they believe in cultivating the spirit, and cultivating goodness, in order to bring forth art that truly inspires.

The Covingtons said they felt a great sense of connection—to the artists and to humankind.

Just feeling connection that we as a people of the world we're all striving for something greater than what the world gives us.

— Michelle Covington

“Just feeling connection that we as a people of the world we’re all striving for something greater than what the world gives us. And that can be found often in the things that we set aside for every day that can be found in music and in culture and in family and in expression,” Mrs. Covington said.

The couple were moved to see Shen Yun express the fact that the divinely inspired culture they sought to revive could not be done so in China today. It isn’t just that Shen Yun is banned in China; the communist regime in power has sought for decades to destroy traditional culture, and as a result, persecutes people of faith still today.

“It was just so touching. I mean, we all feel it. I think all of humanity thinks there is some divine within us, and to have that oppressed just really touched me. That in a culture to be oppressed and not able to express their personal feelings about their faith and about what they want to project in kindness, tolerance, etc, to have that oppressed is horrible,” Mrs. Covington said, moved to tears at her recollection. “I was so very upset and [it’s] hard to watch the dance express the difficulties that that culture has.”

Mr. Covington added that the experience encouraged one to take the long view.

“It was a good way to look at conflicts in life, and how we can overcome them as individuals and as people, and how we can look to God and to nature to help us through difficult times,” he said.

“It’s interesting how we are pretty much all the same across the world. What we want, what we desire, what we look for, and so on are very similar. It’s a good expression of those ideals,” Mr. Covington said.

Mrs. Covington said Shen Yun “was pure splendor.”

“Splendor here, splendor in a higher realm, it was just a moment of splendor,” she said.

Beautiful Details

“Shen Yun” translates into “the beauty of divine beings dancing,” and that divinity shone through for the Covingtons.

“Oh we loved it! We were just discussing how we just love to see the divine within people being expressed in movement and music, it’s beautiful,” Mrs. Covington said. Even the “costumes were divine, they were magnificent! The movement, the color, just amazing.”

The costume designer had an eye for detail.

“The intricate beadwork on the costumes. I loved how they fashioned the different colors to represent the bad guys and the good guys. Just lovely. The sheer fabrics along with the underlays and the overlays, it was just lovely.”

“The color palette was wonderful and it’s changing based on what they were trying to display, whether the cloud city or the water costumes,” Mrs. Covington said. She described the long flowing sleeves, known as water sleeves, in one dance where the dancers seemed like water lilies in motion. The costumes used as props impressed her, as did the rendering of the costumes when the dancers moved from stage to screen with Shen Yun’s patented backdrop technology.

“They were handled so well! And I loved the imagery! How they handled the costumes moving into the LED backdrop was all just so fluid and moved so perfectly. It was magnificently done,” she said.

Reporting by Nancy Ma.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.