ESCONDIDO, Calif.—Screenwriter Steve Turner said he found Shen Yun Performing Arts “wonderful. Very good, very informative, and very colorful; beautiful music and beautiful dancing.”
He and his wife, Kim, a veterinarian, made it out to Saturday afternoon’s Shen Yun Performing Arts performance at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.
New York-based Shen Yun uses the very best means available to revive and revitalize China’s ancient 5,000-year-old culture. It combines classical Chinese dance, orchestral music that uses both Chinese and Western instruments, bel canto soloists, colorful costumes, and an animated digital backdrop to bring the beauty of the world’s oldest continuous culture to life on the stage.
Mr. Turner said the backdrop was “beautiful, very nice. I liked the way they used the screen in back to accentuate everything, as far as the mystical quality of everything.”
Mrs. Turner said that one story in particular stood out for her. “I liked the last story. It was spiritual, divine intervention, and enlightenment against the oppression in China, and it really touched me.”
“I agree,” said Mr. Turner.
Mrs. Turner described the costumes as “beautiful, colorful, and elegant,” and they both agreed they were “graceful.”
The Shen Yun website describes the costumes: “Every costume in a Shen Yun performance is presented with brilliant colors, displaying a splendid spectacle—from the Tang Dynasty’s ‘Raiment of Rainbows and Feathers’ to imperial dragon robes, phoenix coronets, and cloud capes, from the civil official’s headdress and robes to the warrior’s helmet and armor, and from the traditional rightward cross-collared Han clothing to the ethnic attire of the Manchurian, Tibetan, Dai, Mongol, and Uyghur ethnic groups.”
“I really enjoyed the music,” said Mr. Turner. “This classical music had a lot of vibrant quality, and it was brought out by the dancing, as well. Very nice, the whole thing seemed to fuse together very well.”
The couple also enjoyed the erhu, a two-stringed bowed instrument renowned for its haunting, vocal-like quality.
“Oh, I loved that—lovely, lovely. Very, very nice,” Mrs. Turner said.
Mr. Turner said that the show taught him “quite a bit” about Chinese culture.
He said particularly “the mystical quality of going to heaven and having this bond with spiritual angels or spiritual beings from another world, that are helping the person get through difficult times in this world.”
Reporting by Lu Rusong and Ben Bendig.
Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company will next perform in Phoenix, Arizona, at the ASU Gammage, Jan. 27-29.
For more information visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
