(Clearwisdom.net) Shen Yun Performing Arts gave three performances of their 2009 World Tour at Arizona State University's Gammage Theatre on March 27 and 28, 2009. Shen Yun performances revive and celebrate traditional Chinese culture.
Ms. Jordison and her daughter, Julie, were among those who enjoyed the show. Ms. Jordison is the executive director on a board involved with education. She adopted her 4-year-old daughter from China three years ago. She said, "I came to the show to lead Julie to her culture. The show is beautiful, just beautiful! Beautiful costumes, and very entertaining!"
Her favorite dance was "Drummers of the Tang Court." In the dance, men in formal yellow uniforms dance and beat thunderous drums. The Tang Dynasty is considered the peak of Chinese civilization. Her daughter's favorite was "The Five Millennia Begin." In this performance, heavenly beings descend to earth with the Yellow Emperor. In Chinese folklore the Yellow Emperor and his royal court brought the gift of culture to China.
Ms. Jordison said, "Always, anything relating to Chinese culture is special to us, even before we adopted Julie. I would recommend this show to my friends, it's well worth the investment, well worth the time. We will come back again next year."
Graphic Designer: "The stories are shown so vividly. It's just wonderful!"
Ms. Testerman, a graphic designer who has been involved in the arts for over 40 years, came to the show with her daughter and four grandchildren.
Ms. Testerman, a graphic designer, with her daughter and four grandchildren
She was fascinated by the show. "It was really wonderful. I really liked it. It was fantastic to see that the culture from years ago is being saved... I have a lot of friends who are from China. I think that culture is such a beautiful thing, and to see it suppressed in China breaks my heart. So when I saw the show--the professionalism, the dancing was so good, everything--I was just so impressed. It was very good. I would recommend everyone to come and see this show."
Ms. Testerman said of the dancers, "The men are men; the women are women. There's femininity and masculinity, and there's no confusion, which I think is wonderful. Classical Chinese dance is so artistic and so thought-out, so prepared. And the stories--you don't have to know the language to understand because the stories are shown so vividly. It's just wonderful."
Ms. Testerman shared her impression about the music, "The music is awesome. I play instruments myself--I was very impressed with the music."
She said the show exceeded her expectations. Regarding the stories about persecution, Ms. Testerman said, "It breaks my heart about what happens in China. We've got to pray for the people in China." She said she has several friends who have told her stories about how their relatives were persecuted by the communist regime.
Sculptor: "It's absolutely phenomenal!"
Mr. Jones creates water sculptures by combining the science of water, technology, and art. He applies subtle phenomena that become sculptural in scale. He has studied Chinese culture, Chinese medicine, alchemy, and the history of China. He said, "I think the Chinese culture is stunning. I'm a long-term student of the world's cultures, and the Chinese culture very much resonates with me. So I appreciate seeing all the subtleties that I don't get by reading books."
He said, "This show is amazing. It's absolutely phenomenal! The precision of the movements, how elegantly everything flows, just seeing the feet land, seeing all of the subtleties and emotion, the way in which every actor really is managing [his or her] whole appearance to really bring up the level of the crowds' emotion. It really is moving. It's very graceful. There is a subtlety to it. It has a kind of beautiful polarity. The ladies are incredibly dainty, and yet they have such an internal presence. The men are very expressive."
He went on to say, "It's kind of like a storm, like when the thunder hits--it's sharp, but it's also delightful. I think it's quite lovely. I'm very moved by it. The coordination between movement and costume and expression reflects such harmony. That infinite complexity is held as the simplest grace. It's held within the simplest grace as if all of the 10,000 things are present in the single flourish of the hand."
As a sculptor, Mr. Jones particularly liked how the state-of-the-art 3-D digital backdrop contributed to the performances: "One of the things that I like from a sculptural perspective is that this video has been so perfectly incorporated into the whole thing, and so it really takes you into it. It's more than just a flat stage, and that really is exciting, and then also there is more story that is being told in that way. The coordination of colors with the shape and motion, I think, also, is really quite good.
Regarding the spiritual aspects of the show, he said, "I think that there are two aspects to the spiritual component in the show. One is the very ancient and the other is the understanding of the very ancient through the modern, which is Falun Dafa." He said that the main message he got from the performance was: "The spiritual path is easiest followed with clear vision of the happenings [in] the world." "I am just so thankful."
Source: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/14409/
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/14402/
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/14400/
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Category: Shen Yun Performing Arts
