DENVER—The audience was alive with excitement and ready to enjoy Shen Yun Performing Arts when the curtain rose at the Buell Theatre on April 3. Amory Host attended with his friend Sandra Russell and found much to applaud.
Mr. Host, who retired as CEO of a solar development company, said, “It was an extraordinary experience. I absolutely loved it—spectacular dance, spectacular colors, and spectacular performance all around. Absolutely loved it. My first time, but I will be back.”
Mr. Host said he took in “just the beautiful expression of the human form in dance. The range of motion and the choreography of it was extraordinary.”
Ms. Russell said, “The message for me is that there is an incredible and vital importance in maintaining tradition and incorporating that into modern mores and social beliefs.”
She felt “that there’s room for the traditional as well as for the evolution of new and more creative and more inclusive philosophies for civilizations, especially as one as honorable as the Chinese have been for over 5,000 years.”
“I had the good fortune to spend a month in China as a medical exchange and was able to visit Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin, and Guangzhou. It is the most extraordinary country that has so much to be proud of—their development, their history, their culture, and all aspects of their creativity and expression of that,” she said.
“It’s interesting because I have a degree in philosophy and studied Asian philosophy.
“Again, there’s room for specific ideologies, but there is an underlying need for unification and inclusion rather than exclusion,” she said.
Mr. Host said he “found the expression and the connection both in the messages that were sent, but also the deep spirituality that comes from movement and dance. It is a form of spirituality that is a form of expression. So it touched my soul as well, and I loved it. Beautiful.”