SAN ANTONIO—Philanthropist Susan Naylor sits on the board of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, which has hosted
Shen Yun Performing Arts for more than a decade. On Feb. 2, she and friends Kristina and Kyle Davidson attended the performance for the first time and realized it was a performance unlike any they had experienced before.
“This was my first time, and it was just a beautiful performance all the way around,” said Ms. Naylor. “It is like nothing I’ve ever seen, which is amazing.”
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a
mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization through the arts.
Ms. Naylor remarked on the couture
costumes, which are designed based on traditional Chinese dress and heavenly regalia, and the use of an animated
backdrop of Shen Yun’s own design, and how they came together to create an entirely new experience.
“Just the merging of the dance with the costumes and the way it’s presented with the screens, I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.
“I thought it was beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like that,” Ms. Naylor added. “And to me, it presented the beauty of nature in China.”
Ms. Naylor said what struck her most was the artists’ honesty, which she felt was conveyed through the
performance.“They’re beautiful dancers, beautiful costumes, but just the honesty of what they’re presenting, and the message, the message that they’re presenting, it was just beautiful,” she said.
Ms. Naylor felt it was a message “of honesty, innocence, purity, peace.”
“It seems to come from the heart,” she said. “It comes into our hearts, yes. From their hearts to ours.”
Ms. Davidson, too, was amazed by the artistry of the performance and added that the
music made a big impression on her.
“Music—amazing. Orchestra—awesome. I feel like the dancers became the music. It’s like they were one with the music,” she said. “It was just really fun to watch.”
Reporting by Sherry Dong and Catherine Yang.
