NEW YORK CITY— Seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts thrilled two couples at the matinee at the Lincoln Center David H. Koch Theater on April 12.
“I thought the dancing was fantastic. I thought the performance was amazing. Absolutely amazing,” said Neil Grey, who’s a media sales manager.
His wife, Angelica, thought the performance was spectacular and loved learning about Chinese culture.
She was particularly impressed with the patented 3D digital backdrop that allows the dancers to seemingly jump from the stage into an animated vista on the screen.
“I've never seen that before. I thought that was pretty cool,” she said.
Mr. Grey was tremendously surprised by “how captivating the dancing was. … The overall performance was amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Celebrating its 20th year, Shen Yun is not only the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company in the world but also the first to introduce the ancient art form widely.
Classical Chinese dance is an independent dance system with unique postures and difficult tumbling techniques. It’s also remarkably expressive and able to bring stories from history, ancient myths, and literature to life.
Due to Mr. Grey’s work in the television industry, he was qualified to comment on what it would take to integrate the dance, music, backdrops, and stories all together.
“I can't even imagine. It's very challenging to put this together. The fact that they could put it together for so many weeks on end and it come off flawlessly—so it's amazing. Yeah. Really good,” he said.
“I mean, [I’ve] seen many productions.”
Beyond the quality at the surface level, he felt a very positive feeling, energy, and message from the performance. He described the message as “not forgetting the past as we look forward. … [It was] very peaceful, very peaceful message.”
“You get a calm sense of spirituality with it” and an understanding of “where we all came from.”
It was just a very surprising event for him.
In addition to the live orchestra with both Eastern and Western instruments, each performance includes a soloist— sometimes an instrumentalist, sometimes a vocalist.
The couple truly enjoyed the soprano soloist.
“The vibration, you can feel it … and the energy,” Ms. Rubio said, who found the lyrics very touching.
The lyrics, in Chinese and English, are projected onto the backdrop. The soprano sang about maintaining kindness in the face of life’s confusion and that the true purpose of life is “spiritual renewal.”
For Ms. Rubio, the song meant “there's a lot more to life than just, you know, money.”
She felt it was an important message to today, because “there's so much going on, and I think we sometimes need to realize … the importance of life.”
