JACKSONVILLE, Fla.—Bruce Van Dam, a retired commander with the U.S. Navy, enjoyed Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time at the Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 21, finding the various aspects of the production to be beautiful.
“Very beautiful backgrounds, beautiful dancing, beautiful flexibility of how they leap into the air and demonstrate the different dances. It’s unique,” said Mr. Van Dam. “How they combine the dancers with the video on the screen is beautiful.”
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 music and dance, Shen Yun aims to share with audiences the beauty of China before communism, which Mr. Van Dam found intriguing.
“I like the different cultural background behind the stories and the costumes, and the beautiful movement, and everything else,” he said. “I’m hoping to enjoy just being exposed to these dances and seeing traditional dances that ... are sometimes a thousand years old.
Mr. Van Dam was appreciative of the fact that Shen Yun was sharing this ancient culture and beautiful dance with the world, even though Shen Yun cannot perform in China, where the Chinese communist regime has sought to destroy the traditional culture.
“It exposes people to things that they might not have known about in the world,” he said. “Keep up the great work and you’re doing a great job. It’s beautiful.”
Reporting by Nancy Ma and Catherine Yang.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
