DALLAS—Chet Dowden was moved to tears watching Shen Yun Performing Arts, barely able to believe the beauty these artists had created.
“It’s just the most moving thing, I’ve never seen anything more beautiful,” said Mr. Dowden, business owner, after seeing the
performance with Ashley Dowden at the Music Hall at Fair Park on Jan. 26.
“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, you see, I can’t even describe it,” he said, still emotional. “I can’t believe how much work went into this.”
Shen Yun, based in New York, is the world’s premier
classical Chinese dance company. Through music and dance, Shen Yun aims to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, taking as its mission to show audiences around the world “China before communism.”
Traditional Chinese culture is a
divinely inspired culture, and for millennia, China was known by names such as “the land of the Divine” and the “Celestial Empire.” Civilization revolved around the concept of harmony between heaven, earth, and humankind, and the culture was a deeply spiritual one.
Mr. Dowden said that he is a religious man himself, a deacon at his church, and the spirituality he saw was a universal one.
“I see that we all believe in a divine Creator,” he said, adding that this spiritual, traditional culture is one that is under attack in the modern world, but
Shen Yun stood against that. “And this is worth launching a thousand ships to preserve.”
Mrs. Dowden said Shen Yun had also brought tears to her eyes, moved by the beauty of the art.
“I’m touched, for sure. We’re both very emotional,” she said. “It’s just beautiful, it’s touching, the colors are amazing, the music is beautiful, everything about it is just gorgeous, it’s a wonderful show.”
Mr. Dowden said that after seeing
Shen Yun, he realized he had much to learn in his life.
“We have so much to learn from this culture because this culture, it shows that there’s much to learn. And there is so much to preserve in this culture. That there is beauty ... from the heavens even,” he said. “The heavens have concern even for the tender of the fields, so, that, even, all the way down.”
Reporting by Frank Liang and Catherine Yang.
