Shen Yun has been performing in Philadelphia with all sold-out performances for 2 weeks now. Audience members continue to be thrilled by the performances.
Michael Kelly played the principal French Horn in the Delaware County Symphony Orchestra. He was attracted by the perfection of the performance, and the beauty of the dance.
“The athletic of all the dance movements, the artistry of the movements that they made, they were so beautiful,” Kelly said. “But the most important thing that caught me the most was the absolute simultaneity of the choreography, everything was perfect.”
He was also thoroughly impressed by the live orchestra of Shen Yun, as well as the erhu soloist.
“I was really impressed,” he added. “Those are top of the world skills on those instruments, they have to be. I can’t believe that there’s another better player [of] that two-string instrument in the world than the one that we heard tonight.”
Inner Beauty
Classical Chinese dance contains China’s deep cultural traditions, and allows its movements to be richly expressive.
“Their presentation, their execution, just their overall stage presence,” said Stacie-Anne Hannawacker. “And it’s very interesting to see western versus eastern dance, and see how that influences in the different hand motions, and the different hand positions that are not something we do in American dance.”
As a dancer, Hannawacker felt inspired by the deep expressiveness of the dancers.
“You can just tell by the way they glow and they walked, and just the way that they carry themselves, that they’re very compassionate people within each other and the way that they related to the audience. I mean, just seeing the dancers’ expressions, in the looks on their faces you could tell that they were trying to elude compassion and get us to understand their stories, which was amazing,” she said. “The folklore and seeing it come to life on stage with the costuming and the dancing, and to see these ancient stories told in a very different way, just not verbally. I loved it, it was great.”
Divine Returns
Ancient Chinese culture is known to be divinely inspired. They believed in respecting the divine and a balance between man and nature. Hannawacker admired the spiritual aspect of the performance.
“The divine and compassion and the afterlife and going there and what we need to do to get there and to believe that this is all true in these words are true and if you believe that and you stay away from the bad you will go where you need to go, so that was that’s what I got out of a lot of the music,” Hannawacker said.
They also appreciate the efforts of Shen Yun to revive this traditional Chinese culture.
“I like that mission, I almost detest what has happened in China, that has driven this out of their culture, it should be part of the culture,” said Kelly. “Something like that should not be lost from what humanity can do, that’s what’s important about it.”
“So keep it up, keep up the great work, and keep the traditions from China coming our way so we can keep learning,” added Hannawacker.
NTD News, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
