TORONTO—The audience sat with anticipation awaiting the rescheduled summer run of Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on June 27.
James O’Grady, president of Canadian company Unpublished Media, traveled from Ottawa to see the performance. His company runs a website that covers current affairs and politics.
“It was great. I really enjoyed it,” he said. This was his second time seeing Shen Yun. Commenting on the choreography and music, Mr. O’Grady said, “It’s beautiful. It’s really nice. I’ve always enjoy cultural dance and cultural shows, and Chinese dance and music is quite beautiful.”
He said that classical Chinese dance is very different from Western classical or modern dance. “I was really impressed,” he said. “[The dancers] are quite skilled.”
During the last scene called “Salvation,” depicted in modern-day China, Mr. O’Grady said, “I had goosebumps at the end, I have to say. That was interesting.”
He commented on the spiritual quality of traditional Chinese culture.
Mr. O’Grady found Shen Yun’s message of traditional Chinese culture to be “uplifting.”
“It gives you positive feelings about things,” he said. “It’s a difficult time right now for a lot of people. So coming to an event like this is like giving you a shot in the arm.”
Shen Yun’s mission is to revive and share with the world 5,000 years of culture and heritage from “China before communism.” Dances, especially “The Steadfast Heart”—which portrays the evil crime of murdering believers of the spiritual practice Falun Dafa for their vital organs—carries a strong message.
Mr. O’Grady resonated with the message of standing up to say no to this kind of evil. “It makes perfect sense [to oppose] it.”
He disagreed with “the idea that everybody must be assimilated, that everybody must be the same … a general state ideology. That isn’t the way. Humanity isn’t that way.”
“China, as one of the oldest nations in the world, has a tremendous cultural history for all of its regions, not just one. I’ve never believed in one China. For me, it’s not one China or two Chinas—there are many Chinas,” he said.
Mr. O’Grady liked all the stories performed in dance, such as the light-hearted “How the Monkey King Came to Be,” and dances with darker themes such as “The Steadfast Heart” about live organ harvesting by the communist regime.
He liked “You Reap What You Sow” about a magical peach tree. He said, “I was watching the girls pick the peaches on the screen and I was, like, ‘Wow! That’s really pretty neat.’”
He said, “I’ve actually spent a lot of time in my life studying different religions or spiritual approaches. So it wasn’t completely different from what I’ve seen before. I enjoyed it.”
He was also impressed with Shen Yun’s unique digital backdrop technology that interacts with the performers as they enter and exit the screen.
“I really like the technology part of it, with the characters coming in and out of the back screen. I’ve never seen that before,” he said. “That was really neat and helps bring [the story] to life.”
Mr. O’Grady said how happy he was to see Shen Yun in June after it was cancelled in March. “I hope to see it again next year. I hope they’re back, and I hope they continue. I hope that people will come out and support it, and not let the shenanigans get in the way.”
Referring to the fake bomb threat before the March show, Mr. O’Grady said, “We should never let that succeed. It’s pretty childish, and you can see the kind of harm that it can create. So we should never be silent on things like this. This is the time to speak up.”
