SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun an ‘Experience of God’: Independent Artistic Director, Singer, Dancer

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Shen Yun an ‘Experience of God’: Independent Artistic Director, Singer, Dancer
Mr. Glenn Hart and Ms. Rana Hamida at the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand, on April 23, 2023. NTD

AUCKLAND, New Zealand—Rana Hamida described Shen Yun Performing Arts as an “experience of God.”

Ms. Hamida is an independent artistic director who works with events and festivals, coordinating artists from different mediums of expressions. She is also a singer and dancer. She and Mr. Glenn Hart, a freelance photographer, attended the last of Shen Yun’s five sold-out shows in Auckland on April 23.

Ms. Hamida commended the “pure magic” of Shen Yun’s artistry.

“This is like [the] pure magic of bringing together discipline and flow—the feminine flow and creativity, and then the discipline of timing and practice,” she said. “I can see all the discipline that has been put in it, and the focus and the presence. It’s like a moving meditation rather than a performance, so this was so inspiring.

“It’s an experience of God dancing through space and time,” she said. “It’s very amazingly inspiring, [a] showcase of the creative divine.”

Founded in 2006, Shen Yun has been touring the globe, bringing back to life the grandeur of a lost culture through breathtaking dance, vibrant costumes and backdrops, and all-original music. Shen Yun’s artists present an all-new performance every year.
Chinese culture is said to be divinely-inspired and is the only culture in the world to have a continuous recorded history of 5,000 years. Shen Yun declares it is reviving the “beauty and goodness of ‘China before communism.’”
“It was an exciting journey for me, it was a journey in so many different emotional layers,” Ms. Hamida said after witnessing traditional Chinese culture brought to life on stage. “At one point, I was crying, and at another point, I was just laughing. It is such a beautiful journey into life.”
“This is a really realistic experience, it’s a really realistic divine experience of life in all aspects. You sometimes feel this elation and beauty and love, and sometimes you feel this pain. But even with the pain, you’re still feeling that sense of peace with all the things that happen.”
She praised how well Shen Yun’s music coordinated with the dance on stage.

“To hear the music, the music is really subtle, very subtle energy. Seeing it [in the dance], it’s a very gross physical energy; it’s just a very magical combination between both. The music, the accuracy, the communication between the music and the [dance] movements at the same time. The presence, the accuracy of being together, and that conversation keeps happening at all times. That’s very valuable and precious,” she said.

Mr. Hart, who is also a musician and DJ, said the music of Shen Yun was “very alive” and made him feel “uplifted.”

The Shen Yun Orchestra combines the spirit, beauty, and distinctiveness of Chinese music with the precision and power of the Western symphony orchestra.

Mr. Hart also praised how the music coordinated so seamlessly with the dance on stage.

“The orchestral ensemble as a whole is beautiful ... I was pulled between experiencing what was on stage, the magic through movement, and then pulled into the music as well. I was pulled between two worlds at the same time, which is ultimately one in the same world.

“The nature of the movements with the song, it was so poetic and truly divine.”

He said he cried “at least twice.”

“I got definitely heated, I could feel triggered when the Communist Party came on stage. What I felt was the restriction of freedom, restriction of art as a whole,” he said. “And the journey through that difficulty is what life is about, we restrict, we experience pain and then we transmute it into art in different ways.

“It definitely brought up a lot of emotions and goosebumps. I had goosebumps so many times throughout the performance, it’s incredible.”

Mr. Hart thanked Shen Yun’s artists: “Thank you for your dedication, your devotion. We have an idea of how much effort and energy goes into this. It is a true dedicated path to be able to show up and perform as a musician, as a dancer. Even the amount of hands to create an ensemble, the choreography, the moving parts; so much gratitude for the effort and the willingness to bring this to the world.”

Ms. Hamida hopes that Shen Yun keeps performing around the world even though currently, it is banned from performing in China by the communist party.

“Please keep bringing [Shen Yun] to everyone,” she said. “Because we can’t comprehend a lot of the divine experiences in life, it’s very important to keep this happening.

“There was something that was coming to me very often as I was watching, is that prohibiting and stopping art, artistic expression, music, and dance, is like a work against God, really.

“[Shen Yun] is a pure experience,” she said. “Please keep doing what you do, and keep offering that to people because we are in a time [where] we really need this ... with all the softness and all the persistence and discipline, and the love you can see so clearly.”

Reporting by NTD and Mimi Nguyen Ly.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
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