TORONTO—Jonathan Waters’s daughter was a ballerina, and he spent many years as the president of the board of their local ballet company in Florida. As a seasoned dance aficionado, he was amazed by the classical Chinese dance he saw in Shen Yun Performing Arts.
“Oh, it was absolutely wonderful,” said Mr. Waters, an executive vice president in the tech field, who attended
Shen Yun with Eva Santianni at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on April 4.
“It was really, really good. I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Ms. Santianni, a retired teacher, said. “Oh, it was fantastic. I just loved it. It’s the first time I’ve come to one of those shows so it was magical, beautiful.”
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s top classical Chinese dance company. Through
music and
dance, Shen Yun’s mission is to show audiences the beauty of China before communism.
“First of all, the energy here is really amazing, but I think the production quality ... they’re all really, really good,” Mr. Waters said. Having seen many performances, he spoke of the lighting,
the stagecraft, the minutes the dancers had to change costumes, and so on.
“What impressed me most, apart from the quality, was the way the lighting is done. It brings up the colors so beautifully and also the use of the digital backdrop,” Mr. Waters said. He also noticed
the orchestra and the way the music was arranged to make use of both ancient Chinese instruments and Western instruments to deliver a Chinese sound with a classical orchestra.
“They were really, really good,” he said. “But the way they, as I want to say, put it all together, you know, because you can have an instrument there, instrument there, but if they’re not together, you don’t get the impact. They were really good.”
Ms. Santianni also loved getting to know a different kind of dance. “I really enjoyed the gracefulness of it,” she said.
Reporting by Xinxin Teng and Catherine Yang.
