OKLAHOMA CITY—Lives hang on the line whenever Chad Parks goes to work in the aircraft engine quality assurance business, so his senses are naturally tuned to picking up the finest details in every human endeavor. Today, those keen senses were honed on
classical Chinese dancers flowing gracefully on stage as he attended Shen Yun Performing Arts in Oklahoma City.
In aircraft terminology, “souls” are what passengers aboard planes are often called. After Saturday’s matinee at the Visual and Performing Arts Center Theater, Mr. Parks told The Epoch Times that’s also what he saw beaming from every turn of a dancer’s hand and note plucked or blown from a
musical instrument: soul.
Every detail radiated positive energy.
“You can just tell it comes from within their—not just their practice and all, but from their spirit,” he said, adding that he picks up on these things because he works for Pratt & Whitney where “the smallest detail can create a catastrophe.”
“We build jet engines for aircraft, not only military, but civilian aircraft,” he said. “We make sure everything is just right. So maybe that’s why this touches me more than maybe some because we’re very focused on details with aircraft.”
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, which aims to “revive a culture that was once almost lost” with its dance segments.
Mr. Parks elaborated on what he saw today in Shen Yun, whose tagline reads, “China before communism.” Mr. Parks, who served in the U.S. military for 27 years, said the show enlightened him on the essence of Chinese culture, which he once assumed was a “very closed society.”
“But that’s not the way,” he said. “I have a new hope for society, later on, that we can come together and all have that positive spirit that is enlightening.”
Shen Yun displays arts sourced from ancient times, often painstakingly researching motifs and myriad ethnic dances from across the Middle Kingdom and throughout history. Its dancers also aim to cultivate their characters per the virtues of ancient times and bring that to the stage—something Mr. Parks also didn’t fail to notice.
He thinks the world can benefit from
Shen Yun and its efforts to share those virtues.
“Each one of them, you can almost look into their eyes and see that they’re just filled with that excitement and energy. It just flows out of them naturally,” he said. Can it benefit society? “Absolutely,” he said, “especially nowadays with society seemingly so divisive.”
Reporting by Sally Sun and Michael Wing.
