VANCOUVER—Performing artist Sharon Feder and her mother Elena, a retired professor, attended Shen Yun Performing Arts’ matinee at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on April 13. She brought her family to enjoy an afternoon out, and left with so much more.
“I think the artistry is really beautiful. The story is very powerful. I’m really glad I brought my children to learn about the history and the challenges that the people who have made this show and the people who are struggling with the current regime in China are facing. I think it’s really important that we educate our children these days about these challenges, as difficult as that might be,” she said.
“The dancing is phenomenal. … The artistry is exceptional. Obviously, these dancers are very, very well trained and clearly the choreographies are very well put together and the music is powerful and seamless.”
“The narrators are very fun and funny and accessible for the audience, which is something that’s lacking in a lot of professional stage work in the contemporary arts,” she remarked.
“I appreciated the way that the projection was used to [go] back and forth between the realms—the divine and the earthly realms—that was really fun.”
The New York-based Shen Yun was founded in 2006 by elite Chinese artists who had fled the persecution of the communist party.
For millennia, China’s civilization flourished under the shared belief that the divine will bless those who uphold traditional moral values. Tragically, within just a few decades of the communist party’s violent takeover, these beliefs were erased and replaced with atheism.
Though Ms. Feder is of a different faith, she was moved by the artists’ “courage to speak about one’s faith these days because it’s not as easy.”
“It’s almost like the tables have turned. It used to be that you couldn’t speak of anything but faith a long time ago. … Now, it’s if you speak of faith, then you’re ridiculed or at best ridiculed.”
Mrs. Feder, too, was moved by the performers’ determination to revive their culture despite the hardships they endured over the years. It reminded her of her own experience as a Jew.
Commenting on Shen Yun’s story-based dances that raise awareness about the communist regime’s persecution of Falun Dafa—a peaceful meditation practice whose followers adhere to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, forbearance—Mrs. Feder said she’s aware of the situation.
“I feel great affinity, and I have great admiration and respect for the movement. I’ve seen the Falun Gong protest in front of the Chinese embassy. ... I admire their courage, I admire their perseverance, and I admire their spirit,” she expressed.
“I think [Shen Yun artists] are great ambassadors for the truth and for what is really important in the world. I have great respect, I’m really happy to have come [with] both my grandchildren and my children here to see what [they’re] doing.”
