TORONTO—Alex Gámez, co-director of a ballet company and choreographer from Salvador, had the chance to see Shen Yun Performing Arts with his family while visiting Toronto.
“
I found it an incredible, wonderful, colorful show, full of a lot of culture and tradition,” he said at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts after seeing the
matinee performance.
“The costumes are beautiful. The choreographic proposals are beautiful. The synchronicity, the lights, the music, the
singers—everything, it’s a wonderful show.”
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier
classical Chinese dance company, renowned for reviving the ancient art in its most authentic form. Since its inception in 2006, it has grown to be a global phenomenon.
Mr. Gámez saw the performance with his mother and his sister. Jocelyn Gámez, his sister, was a ballet dancer herself.
“
We are impressed by that harmony between the orchestra, the dancers, that magic that is created with all the dancers’ costumes,“ Ms. Gámez said. ”It generates a magical atmosphere
—the topics that are addressed about spirituality, the gods. That is, it combines so perfectly that it introduces you to that magical world.”
Shen Yun’s mission is indeed to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. The ancients believed that their culture was
divinely inspired and that society centered on the concept of harmony between heaven, earth, and humankind.
Mr. Gámez said he greatly appreciated the dancers’ artistry and talent.
“They seemed very subtle, very elegant, very delicate in their movements, with a lot of synchrony, with a lot of expressiveness,” he said. “Very strong, with a lot of skill, a lot of agility, with a lot of character, very precise.”
Classical Chinese dance is a famously expressive art form, well suited to storytelling, and Mr. Gámez felt the dancers certainly made their
stories understood without using a single word.
“Sometimes it is not necessary to understand a language, a spoken language, because the body expresses any language. Sometimes we do not speak the same language, but through the body we understand through dance,” he said.
The atmosphere the artists created through their expression and stagecraft was pure and brought “a lot of magic,” he added.
“There was a very intense atmosphere,” Mr. Gámez said. “Very internal, very spiritual, very welcoming.”
With reporting by Dongyu Teng.
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