SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Theatregoers Praise ‘Spectacular’ Shen Yun

Dec 30, 2014

KITCHENER, Canada—After seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts at Centre In The Square in Kitchener on Dec. 29, photographer Lenka Libjak paused to share some words about the performance.

“I think it’s spectacular. It’s pretty amazing. The stories—it’s beautiful, it’s just beautiful,” she said during the intermission.

Shen Yun performances feature award-winning classically trained dancers, a unique orchestra that combines traditional Chinese instruments with Western instruments, groundbreaking animated backdrops, and hundreds of colourful handmade costumes.

“It’s just very beautiful—the colour, the costumes. The dance is fascinating how much it’s in unison,” said Ms. Libjak, who does photography work on top of raising two small children.

She especially enjoyed the digitally animated backdrops, which interact with the dancers to enhance the story-based dances.

“I just love how they incorporate the images into the real dancers. ... They just come off the stage from the screen,” she said.

Everything was just spectacular.

— Julie Parfect

Both the costumes and dance were of special interest to Julie Parfect. Her daughter is a professional dancer, and for many years Ms. Parfect helped out at her daughter’s dance studio in various ways, including making costumes for the performers.

“Everything was just spectacular,” she said of the Shen Yun performance.

She was highly impressed with the Shen Yun dancers.

“The flexibility, like the height and the extra little spins and twists you don’t see but they are there—it’s amazing, it’s amazing,” she said.

“The colours were stunning and they looked gorgeous. We were in the mezzanine and you could see the details of everything from there. … It was gorgeous.”

As a part of its 2015 international tour, Shen Yun will play in over 100 cities on five continents, gracing some of the world’s most prestigious stages such as New York’s Lincoln Center, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, and Paris’s Palais des Congrès de Paris.

Reporting by Matthew Little and Joan Delaney

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org

The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.