NEW YORK CITY—Entertainment company head David Patrick Wilson saw Shen Yun Performing Arts opening night at Lincoln Center, and knew he had to share his newfound inspiration with his team for their own upcoming production.
Since its inception in 2006, Shen Yun has grown to eight companies that tour the world simultaneously, this year visiting around 200 cities across five continents.
With insight into what it takes to put on a performing arts show, Mr. Wilson said he was amazed at what Shen Yun had accomplished, with its patented backdrop technology and a production that must have taken a year to prepare.
“The performers are phenomenal. The execution is incredible. It’s just an amazing production. Really amazing production. I’m going to make sure that I tell all my friends about it,” he said.
Mrs. Gill-Wilson said the performance was “so beautiful” that she wanted to get up and “dance with them.”
“I love it. I absolutely love it,” she said. “I love the spirit. The spirit is so beautiful and the dancing is just so gorgeous.”
‘No One Should Miss This’
Also in the audience on opening night was Barbara Swenson, now retired, who had a lifelong career in the performing arts herself and dreamed of seeing Shen Yun for many years.But it almost didn’t happen, Ms. Swenson said. Last year, her fiancée, Jaima Sanchez, proposed to her with tickets to Shen Yun, and the happy couple were all dressed up and ready to go when they realized they had lost their tickets.
But after last year’s heartbreak, the couple secured tickets “to see this most magnificent, beautiful production,” Ms. Swenson said.
“The orchestra was outrageous. They were just dynamite. The colors, the story, the dancers—best show I’ve ever seen. Ever,” she added.
Ms. Swenson said it was a “majestic performance” that everyone should experience at least once.
“Everyone should see this. No one should miss this. It’s for children. It’s for adults. It’s for every nationality. It’s for every religion. It’s something no one should miss. I’m going to leave here tonight. I’m going to go home and I’m going to email absolutely everyone I know. And tell them they cannot miss this,” Ms. Swenson said.
‘I’ve Never Seen Such Artistic Endeavors’
Ms. Swenson was as touched by the experience of the performance as she was by “the story behind it.”“Well, first of all, this is a culture of art. It’s a culture of love. It’s a culture of caring and beauty. The beauty is beyond belief. I’ve never seen such artistic endeavors. The dance, the colors, the story, everything about it is creative,” she said.
The artists had conveyed such love and compassion that Ms. Swenson said, “This just made me forget everything negative that’s going on in the world.”
“Everything involved says love. Everything about it says that we all should be caring about each other. We all should be loving each other,” she said.
Ms. Swenson said she had also experienced much negativity in her personal life in the last few years; in her late 70s, she lost her husband of 50 years to Parkinson’s disease.
Yet sitting in the audience of Shen Yun, “I’ve never felt so positive.”
“This just took me away from all the terrible negativity that’s going on and made me realize how lucky I am to be here and be alive at this point,” she said.
