SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Dancer: Shen Yun Really Pulled Me In

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Dancer: Shen Yun Really Pulled Me In
Dancer Shane Langford at Shen Yun at Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, the night of Feb. 22, 2014. Mary Silver/Epoch Times

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—“The women are beautiful and as elegant as I’ve ever seen a woman to be,” said Shane Langford. Shen Yun’s female dances, such as Delicate Beauty of the Han, Lotus Fairies, and Manchurian Grace convey “the impeccable embodiment of grace,” according to the program.

Mr. Langford is a dancer and dance teacher. He praised the dancers in Shen Yun after he saw it for the first time at Tennessee Performing Arts Center, the night of Feb. 22.

He was thoughtful yet joyful as he described his response. Speaking of finding ideas in Shen Yun for his own art, he said of course, as a creative person, he would not steal or take anything from another artist, yet he was inspired.

“I definitely think I'll be inspired by the shapes I’ve seen and the effects that I’ve seen,” he said.

He had a tiring weekend, but when the dance Mongolian Chopsticks began, he became alert. “This has been a long weekend for me, so I’m just hanging on, but that got me! Really, really pulled me in and got my attention, sat me up in my seat.”

In it, “dancers use chopsticks to create a crisp, staccato beat that quickens the blood and stirs the heart.”

As a male dancer, he was glad to see men allowed to truly dance, rather than simply being “used as props or muscle,” he said.

“The men in the show are amazing. I don’t know how to say how amazing they are. They really impressed me,” said Mr. Langford, smiling.

He came to Shen Yun in order to see the Chinese costumes, and once he arrived, he found the interplay of costumes and props and bodies fascinating. “I'll tell you, it’s inspiring of course, but the instruments they use, and they use their entire bodies, and they use the costumes … their motions, and their bodies, is an entire production.”

Mr. Langford said he felt a kind of straightforwardness or simplicity in the beauty of Shen Yun. He gestured towards his heart and said, “The simplicity of it though, it’s so simple to create something that beautiful, it seems like it, it looks like it, I’m sure it’s not that simple.”

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit Shen Yun Performing Arts.

The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.