CHANGHUA, Taiwan—“I was truly touched. Shen Yun is indeed a spectacular show with very high artistic value,” said Mr. Ju-Sung Chang, president of Jone-Shou Industrial Co., Ltd., and president of the Caotun Lions Club, after he saw the matinee Shen Yun Performing Arts World Company put on at Changhua County Yuanlin Performance Hall on April 12, 2016.
“The performance is breathtaking. As soon as the curtain rose, I was totally enthralled by the glamorous lighting, and I was fully immersed in the plot of the dance piece immediately,“ he said. The opening was a piece called ”Salvation and Renewal,” a story-based dance telling China’s creation myth, with gods descending from the heavens.
According to Shen Yun’s official website, “With state-of-the-art graphics technology, Shen Yun’s digital-backdrop team creates vividly animated settings, extending the stage and transporting the audience to a world where heaven and earth are one.”
Mr. Chang marveled at the flawless coordination between the performers and the backdrops. “The animated digital backdrops interacted with the dancers with great precision. The backdrops indeed created overwhelming momentum. They are really unique,” he said.
“They [the performers] looked as if they were vividly descending to the stage, and then flying back to the backdrops. It must require tremendous training and music arrangement, and they [the artistic director and choreographer] must be very talented so as to reach such accomplishment.”
He lauded the choreography as well. “Each dancer has some fixed steps or postures [to perform], but they performed some movements together in great unison at the beginning and the end to tell a message to the audience: We are one body.”
“Each dancer’s movements imply specific meanings. Though our eyes might not see them all, I felt that they were completely immersed in the plot and the dances.”
He also highly praised Shen Yun’s music and erhu performance. “The erhu performance was very touching and pleasant to ears,” he said, “The live orchestra’s performance was so fabulous that it created tremendous momentum. Besides, it blended with dancers’ movements flawlessly.” “The music was full of emotion as if it had a poetic cadence that intoxicated me and made me forget all my worries.”
Mr. Chang expressed that there were two dance dramas that he felt especially touching: “Monks and the Red Guards” and “Trial by Fire.”
“When seeing [the scenes of] Buddhas and gods descending to the earth to help those oppressed by the Red Guards and the kindhearted people persecuted [by Chinese police], I was in tears,” He said. “I enlightened that these pieces were illustrating the universal principle of ‘Good begets good, and evil leads to evil.’”
He loved the performance, and said he wanted to see more. “It’s so wonderful to see such exquisite performance full of emotions. The show was truly spectacular.”
“When Shen Yun performs in Changhua County again next time, I will definitely come see the show,” he said. “Seeing it once a year is seemingly not enough. We should see it at least twice a year.”
To encourage more people to see Shen Yun, he said, “Shen Yun is really magnificent. Be sure to experience it yourselves!”
Knowing that Shen Yun is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, he sincerely expressed his best wishes to Shen Yun: “I wish Shen Yun bringing happiness and health to human beings forever.”
Reporting by Fang Long and Billy Shyu
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.
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.