WICHITA, Kan.—Teresa Frye, owner and operator of Made Perfect Cleaning Service, saw Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time with Dalin Frye at the Century II Performing Arts and Convention Center on April 7.
“It’s the most beautiful performance I’ve ever seen,” said Mr. Frye.
Amazed by the energy and spirituality of the performance, Mrs. Frye said she “felt a special energy right before I was walking into the concert hall … before it even began.”
“A magical, colorful [performance] … we loved it very much,” she added.
According to the company’s website, the presented heroes embody the most exalted virtues of Chinese civilization and convey morals still relevant to the modern day.
Mrs. Frye thought the dances relaying stories about “relationships and yearning and loss,” to be the most inspiring.
“There isn’t one person that didn’t … relate to each story or at least one,” she said.
She defined the energy from the performance as “high energy … with an underlying feeling of divineness” and said it brought the audience members into a state of “oneness” with a “calm, relaxed, [and] peaceful” mood.
In the past, artists looked to the divine for inspiration and cultivated virtue in order to create uplifting art. Today, Shen Yun’s artists follow this noble tradition and present China’s authentic and spiritual culture by drawing upon the Middle Kingdom’s Buddhist and Daoist philosophies.
Mrs. Frye said her main takeaway from the performance was to “share the message and to never give up.”
She wanted to thank Shen Yun Performing Arts for their “hard work … wonderful talent and craft.”
Keeping Faith
Stuart Bruce, school security officer, also attended Shen Yun for the first time at the Century II Performing Arts and Convention Center on April 7.“It was just beautiful, and the stories behind the dances were very enlightening,” he said.
The digital backdrop allows the performers to remarkably travel back and forth between the stage and the background projection.
“The choreography was spot on … between the background screen and [the dancers] going in and out of the background, that was just amazing … I don’t think it could be beat,” he said.
“It was a very moving experience in a lot of ways,” said Mr. Bruce, who was stirred by Shen Yun’s demonstration of the persecution happening in modern China.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a persecution against the practice in 1999, and adherents have since been subjected to unprecedented imprisonment, torture, and abuse.
“The message itself was very spiritual … and how their faith brought them through troubles,” he said.
“The fact that they cannot do this show in China says a lot because they’re not allowed to express themselves in a free manner,” he added.
“To support God and be behind it ... is an important part of this whole show,” he said, “to let people know what is going on and help them—show support for them.”
Mr. Bruce said the performance helped to inspire “keeping the faith, moving on past troubles, looking past it, and realizing that there is something better ahead.”