ROCKFORD, Ill.—Mark Holm saw in
Shen Yun Performing Arts a vision of China that could be.
“Magnificent, absolutely magnificent. The display of the culture and spirituality is what stuck out to me. I was just amazed. If that’s what pre-communism was in China, I look forward to the day when it comes back,” said Mr. Holm, who is retired from finance and health administration. He saw Shen Yun’s opening night performance in Rockford, Illinois, at the Coronado Theatre on March 25.
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s top classical Chinese dance company. Through
music and
dance, Shen Yun’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization—or “China before communism.”
Mr. Holm felt strongly about the need for freedom of religion and expression for the Chinese after seeing Shen Yun, and stories that touch on the
religious persecution carried out by the Chinese communist regime, which persists to this day.
With such freedoms, the traditional Chinese culture, as shown by
Shen Yun, may flourish, and Mr. Holm felt it was a culture with much in common with the traditional culture he was familiar with.
“That’s what I felt in there today. It’s just that commonality, that just belief in each other. and just understanding compassion,” he said.
“The divine, the desire for us here on earth to return to the divinity that created us, so to me, that was very uplifting. I did not come here thinking I was going to see that, and in leaving now, just very, very impressed,” he said.
He was impressed with how much Shen Yun had conveyed
through dance. “Just brilliant, brilliant choreography. I really enjoyed it,” he said.
“There was so much emotion in their dance, in their music. It was magnificent,” he said.
Reporting by Stacey Tang and Catherine Yang.
