MANCHESTER, UK—Shen Yun Performing Arts thrilled the audience at the Palace Theatre on Jan. 18. John Caldwell, who works for Amazon, and Billin Liu, a holistic therapist, loved the performance.
“The show is absolutely wonderful. We’ve seen it before, and we'll see it again,” Mr. Caldwell said. “It’s elegant, beautiful!”
Ms. Liu said, “It’s beautiful, spectacular, and epic.”
Mr. Caldwell praised the talent of the dancers. “Wonderful. Very skilled,” he said. He went to laud Shen Yun’s artistic director. “Whoever directed the show is fantastic.”
“We love to travel, we love culture, and we’re all into culture and history. So, this is a really good show.”
She described the energy she experienced as “peaceful. I do a lot of Taoist chanting. I’m all into meditation.”
Software Engineer Felt Shen Yun’s Strong Life Force
“I’m very exhilarated by it. I love dancing. I’m not familiar with this dance form, but I enjoyed it greatly. It was very, very exciting, and graceful, and athletic. So, yes. I’m impressed,” he said.
Although Mr. Sumpter was familiar with the story of the Monkey King, he was surprised by the story after the opening curtain of God creating Chinese culture.
“I was just not sure what my expectations were. So I was hoping for some historical narrative.”
But he commented on the energy of the performance. “It’s very, very strong. Lots of life force,” he said.
Shen Yun’s live orchestra accompanies the performers on stage and has both Western and Eastern instruments playing together. “It’s really good classical Chinese music.”
Mr. Sumpter said: “I think it’s right and proper because I think the Chinese is the longest running civilization, to preserve that as a continuous stream of culture is very important. The current Chinese government’s narrative shouldn’t exclude the previous thousands of years of culture. That’s a shame.”
He said he would describe his experience to friends as “very enjoyable and very exhilarating.”