ST. LOUIS—It seems that people from every walk of life attended beautiful Peabody Opera Theater on the opening night of Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company. A real estate developer, a social worker, a university comptroller, and a scientist joined the audience on April 19 and loved the performance they saw.
New York-based Shen Yun, the world’s premier traditional Chinese dance and music company, brought 5,000 years of divinely inspired culture to the stage.
Many of the short dance pieces making up the program rely on classical Chinese dance, one of the most comprehensive and expressive dance systems in the world.
Fred Rudolph, a retired real estate director for Save-a-Lot who helped develop stores all around the country, admired the dancers’ “skill and just the beautiful grace of everybody.”
Mr. Rudolph was most impressed with one of the dances depicting China today—An Unexpected Encounter. “That one was the most dramatic,” he said.
In the dance, the persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice, is depicted. Tourists visiting a park come upon people who are peacefully practicing the Falun Gong exercises and meditating when the police attack them.
“It was just dramatic,” he said. Mr. Rudolph had heard about the persecution “and the unfairness of it all. “Seeing it presented in art form was just something different.”
The whole performance, Mr. Rudolph thought, had both very traditional elements and current stories. “You see the history and then the present day—very interesting,” he said.
Accompanying Mr. Rudolph was Janet, a social worker. “It’s wonderful! It’s very athletic, and the costumes are just extraordinary!” she said.
Although Janet knows something of China, she said she learned from the performance: “I like especially the historical pieces because I don’t know a lot about the tradition and the folk art … the traditional stories. So it was very interesting.”
‘I thought it was beautiful’
Also in the audience was Joyce Fry, a retired research scientist for Monsanto Company who enjoyed the show very much. “I thought it was beautiful,” she said.
Her husband, Robert, a retired comptroller for Webster University, also enjoyed the show. The colors of the hundreds of handmade costumes caught his eye.
“I like the colors. It’s so colorful, all the movements and everything. It’s just very fetching,” Mr. Fry said.
The couple had purchased the tickets very early, as a Christmas present. “That’s why we got the seats on the aisle,” Mr. Fry said.
Reporting by Catherine Wen, Stacey Tang and Sharon Kilarski
Shen Yun Performing Arts, based in New York, tours the world on a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
