Magazine Director: ‘So Flawless, Very Effortless’

ATLANTA—Atlanta’s Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre welcomed Shen Yun Performing Arts’ first show in Atlanta this season on Tuesday, March 8.

Among the enthusiastic audience was Renee Knorr, fashion and beauty director of The 19th Hole Magazine, an award-winning publication dedicated to golf, fashion, and luxury lifestyle.

“We’re very excited,” said Ms. Knorr, who attended the show with her 11-year-old daughter, Janee, and Ian Lawrence. “It’s been an amazing event—wonderful colors, brilliant shades. The theatrical dance has been really mesmerizing. … It was such an inspirational, as well as a calmness about the entire event.”

Ms. Knorr added that Janee “would love to become one of the dancers as well.”

Shen Yun’s hundreds of colorful costumes are all hand-made garments that span China’s regions, ethnic groups, and dynasties.

“This has been an incredible evening and I'm so glad to be here. I look forward to inviting more people to come out to come and see this wonderful 5,000 years of Chinese culture within two and a half hours. It's been a wonderful education for myself,” Ms. Knorr said.

Mr. Lawrence, who saw the show with them, felt “definitely the same.”

“I like the way that they blended in the technology with the multimedia,” he said during the show’s intermission. “The backdrop was very interesting. … The actors disappeared and you saw them again on the screen. It's a very good production, and I can't wait to see the other half.”

The animated backdrops, projected behind the dancers, set the scene for every piece, from blossoming landscapes and Mongolian prairies to snow-capped Tibetan mountains and celestial paradises.

Ms. Knorr particularly noted the dance Ladies of the Tang Palace, saying that it was “so flawless, very effortless.”

“They are so in sync with the demonstration but at the same token, the flowing of the fabric was so beautiful,” she said.

Mr. Lawrence said that he was “impressed with the very first, the beginning,” referring to When Kings Followed the Creator to the Earth.

“It was the king coming down to the earth. I thought that was very interesting and very impressive. And also the last one that we saw—the horse men—the Mongolian [dance].”

Mr. Lawrence also mentioned the Shen Yun Orchestra that accompanied the dance programs throughout the show. The one-of-a-kind orchestra brings together Eastern and Western instruments with all-original compositions.

“They are doing a phenomenal job. Everything is so in sync, beautifully,” he said.

“We weren’t able to see the orchestra because they were below, but we heard the trumpet and some of the instruments that are more traditional to the Chinese culture. So it was a very good combination.”

After spending the “wonderful” evening, Ms. Knorr said that “it made us feel like we weren’t even here in Atlanta.”

“Being able to just embrace that calmness, that spiritualness, and well as just the beauty and the elegance of the story,” she said.

Ms. Knorr said that they will definitely come back next year for Shen Yun’s all-new program.

“And we will make sure we will invite even more to come to appreciate this beautiful expression of Chinese culture because it’s definitely a story that more need to know about,” she said.

Reporting by NTD Television and Helena Zhu.