Full House Greets Shen Yun to Canberra

CANBERRA—Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company opened to a full house at the Canberra Theatre on Tuesday evening, March 8, where the audience was treated to an exhilarating performance of classical Chinese dance and music.

A company director who gave his name as Sid was not disappointed. “I liked the music and the dancing, it was pretty good,” he said, describing the New York-based Shen Yun as “colourful, lively, action-packed and athletic.”

Shen Yun’s portrayal of China’s 5,000-year history is steeped in rich values with the idea that humanity and the divine are intertwined. This idea is built right into the name Shen Yun, which in context translates as “the beauty of divine beings dancing.”

These aspects of the highly-acclaimed presentation were taken in by counsellor and acupuncturist Margo Hubert who enjoyed the performance with Gordon, who used to worked in Australian foreign aid for some 20 years.

“I think the spiritual message is very timely indeed, and it moves me,” Ms. Hubert said. “I think it’s very necessary for times like this. And the three principles that the teacher was teaching in that dance she was punished for, I think that we are becoming much closer to the time when humanity would embrace all of those principles. I don’t see doom for humanity, I see rather upliftment,” she added.

In a collection of short pieces, exquisitely attired dancers portray Chinese legends of the culture’s creation over 5,000 years ago, through to the story of the oppression of the spiritual practice of Falun Dafa in China today, depicted in the dance Our Story, in which a teacher is arrested for scribing the Chinese characters for Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance on the school blackboard.

Gordon admired the virility and grace of the dancers. “I had done a little bit of dancing a long time ago and I know what it takes to have that discipline, strength, agility, energy, and all the beauty … I just thought they presented it wonderfully,” he said.

Classical Chinese dance has a vast training system, and is a dance form still mostly new to the West. In its early years, it was passed down primarily in the imperial court and as part of ancient theatre.

Projected behind the dancers are hi-tech backdrop images that lift the stage and set it amidst blossoming landscapes, deep forests, Mongolian prairies, or celestial paradises.

“The backdrops are marvellous,” Ms. Hubert said. “That idea is absolutely fabulous. Very well done indeed, very well presented, and I have been very moved by it and very happy to be here,” she said.

Reporting by SOH radio network and Raiatea Tahana-Reese.