SAN JOSE—Shen Yun Performing Arts finished a successful five-show run at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts Dec. 26–Dec. 30, dazzling audience members old and new alike.
“It’s incredible. We saw it a few years ago, but this one is even better than before. The blend of colors, and talent, and endurance of these dancers is mindblowing. We really love it,” said Andrew Daly, a senior computer scientist at DXC.
“Definitely come and see it. It’s really worth it.”
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, and takes as its mission to revive through the arts 5,000 years of Chinese civilization—China before communism.
“I think it’s incredibly brave of them to do this, and it’s just great for them to bring it here where we can see it. I hope at some point they can take it back to China,” said Mike Wanzong, a software engineer and solution consultant.
Since its founding in 2006, Shen Yun has grown from one to eight equally-sized companies, bringing the divinely inspired traditional Chinese culture to nearly 1 million audiences worldwide every year.
“It’s the oldest civilization,” said Diane Hitchcock, who said Shen Yun had been “calling to me” for years before she finally made a performance over the holidays. She and her husband Jeff Hitchcock, president of Hitchcock Farms, said they enjoyed every aspect of the performance, describing it with words like “magical” and “enchanting.”
Victoria Recaño, the Emmy-award-winning host of CBS Inside Edition, and her husband, Tom Burwell, were among the enchanted audience members of the Dec. 28.
A Shen Yun production involves several unique aspects, from couture costumes to an innovative, digital backdrop that expands the space for storytelling on stage.
Mr. Burwell, a banking executive, was also very impressed by the story dance enhanced by the animated backdrop. He recounted one of his favorite scenes, in which the male dancer “went into the ocean, and there’s like a splash of water.”
“The interactions with the technical screen [bring the scene] back and forth between the heavens and then back on stage. So I thought that was very realistic,” he said.
“There isn’t any other production that even remotely resembles this,” she said on Dec. 27 at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, the same venue in which she first saw the performing arts group.
“The merging of the video and the background with what’s going on on stage is miraculous. It’s just so creative, and the dancing is wonderful,” Ms. Telesky said. “I don’t think there’s any other group of any kind of dancing that is so synchronous as Shen Yun is.”
“I’m in awe at what I see,” said Mr. Hagen. “I think the show is very well done and spectacular.”
“I think it’s something that it just sort of demonstrates a pursuit of not just excellence to be recognized, but excellence in the pursuit of being the best you possibly can be, not just to impress people, but just because it honors the best that we are capable of inside and out, physically and spiritually.”
