NEW YORK CITY—Theater owner James Habacker was fascinated by Shen Yun Performing Arts, seeing the New York-based performing arts group for the first time.
“The level of talent of the dancers is amazing,” Mr. Habacker said at Lincoln Center on April 3. “I’m very impressed with the quality of the dancing and the technique is amazing, it’s absolutely beautiful, stunning.”
Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission to show audiences “China before communism” through music and dance.
“I think everything, the whole production, is beautiful. The costumes, the spacing of the dancers—that’s not easy when you have 15 people on stage—the spacing is perfect,” he said. “It’s beautiful. I love what they’re doing with the video screen. Going in and out of the screen is very impressive.”
Mr. Habacker found Shen Yun to be an experience of much variety, noting some of the stories were light and even humorous, while others touched on heavy subjects, including a story-based dance set in the modern day that spotlights the Chinese communist regime’s persecution of people of faith.
“It’s impressive,” he said of the range, adding that it was “interesting to see people who are going to stand up to that and just live their own life.”
Like many audience members, Mr. Habacker had known little about the traditional Chinese culture and its divinely inspired nature before seeing Shen Yun.
“And, you know, it’s a very uplifting, positive message. It’s beautiful,“ he said. ”I would definitely recommend it. It’s a beautiful show. I mean, really some of the finest dance I’ve seen all season.”
Reporting by Weiyong Zhu 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.
