On the evening of March 13, Shen Yun Performing Arts appeared on stage for its first performance in Logrono, Spain. The venue was fully booked and among the audience members were politicians from Spain’s La Rioja region. They described Shen Yun as an audio-visual feast that promotes traditional Chinese culture.
María Teresa Antoñanzas Garro, a member of Parliament from La Rioja, said, “The show is amazing. The quality of the dancers and the music is really surprising. All the audio-visual elements and the media backdrop look like magic. The truth is that you get [immersed] into the play, you get into the dance and above all, what a way to promote Chinese culture. The tradition is so rich and so ancient.”
Victor Visairas, a member of Parliament from La Rioja said he “liked it a lot. It has a lot of rhythm, a lot of color and, I think, it shows well a part of the unknown Chinese culture that’s not well known.”
“The show is a moment of magic. It transports you. It gives you the feeling that you are in another place. You are not here, you are not in Logroño, but you have gone to [ancient] China,” said Consuelo Andreo Ruiz, a judge from Cartagena.
Through classical Chinese dance, the Shen Yun artists portray legends and historical events from 5,000 years of Chinese history. The program features a live orchestra that combines both Eastern and Western instruments, as well as vocal performances.
“The truth is we came with the expectation of seeing classical Chinese dance. But at no time we expected a tenor and a pianist of this caliber and of this quality, and we were very pleasantly surprised,” said Laura Lagomarsino, an architect.
Ms. Lagomarsino added, “We were also lucky enough to be quite close to the orchestra and the stage and what we liked is that they [go well] together, the sensation that they all move at the same time. And both the dancers and the musicians are synchronized. I think this is the most beautiful thing that we could experience being so close to the stage.”
Roberto Iturriaga Navaridas, general director of Culture in La Rioja said, he appreciated the staging, the live music, and the combination of Chinese instruments with the traditional instruments, adding, “And then, of course, the synchronization, the colors, movement, agility, perception in the movements. I really enjoyed that.”
Shen Yun’s mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture and moral values. Those traditions are being suppressed and were once almost lost due to political campaigns launched by the Chinese communist regime in the last several decades.
Ricardo Palacios, a political accountant for the Vox Party said, “[China’s] history obviously has a before and after the regime. And you can see that [the one before] is full of values and it is very diverse, it is very complete. That is why I would like to say that I enjoyed it.”
Ms. Garro also said, “there are stories where they talk about kindness. There are stories where they teach you generosity. So, in each piece, even in the music itself, it makes you feel everything that [Shen Yun] wants to convey, all that beauty.” She added that “even under dictatorships, these values are still enduring. I think that no matter what, these values must prevail. This is how we move society forward.”
Ms. Ruiz said, “[Shen Yun] shows that being able to know another culture is so enriching. It opens the mind so much, and it makes us relate to the little things of life so much. That, I believe, in today’s world is as important as eating or breathing.”
Mr. Visairas said, “A culture originates from tradition and develops with the times. Everything we have today is developed from tradition. So I think it is very interesting to bring everything back to tradition.”
Ms. Lagomarsino said, “It has been a whole set of emotions, I would say—sensory, a pleasure for the eyes, a pleasure for the ears, beauty, poetry, harmony—Absolutely wonderful.”
NTD News, Logrono, Spain
