‘Gorgeous dancing and showmanship’

WASHINGTON—Shen Yun Performing Arts gave another breathtaking show at the Kennedy Center Opera House during its August run in Washington, D.C.

Mr. and Mrs. Crook, business owners, wanted to learn more about China's 5,000-year-old history, past and present, and what better way than to see a show that brings authentic stories through dance, song, and music? They were enthralled and deeply touched by the experience.

The show was “vibrant, beautiful, active—it was just gorgeous dancing and showmanship. The performance was so breathtaking,” Mrs. Crook said

Her husband joined in, “I came with the expectation of seeing a really good show, but I was really wowed by what I saw. And it really was beyond the expectation that I had when coming to see it.”

“The very last set was just beautiful. It was so colorful, and it just moved me with the dharma wheel in the back. I don’t know, I just felt it in the dancing and the performances. I just loved it. … It was just really an overwhelming experience. I really, really enjoyed it. It was beyond my expectations for sure.”

Mr. Crook was deeply moved by the dance Heaven Awaits Us Despite Persecution. “That was a great performance. I felt the performers, the actors themselves, were not just acting, but they could really feel and relate to the characters.

“You could tell through their facial expressions that they really believe the story and believed in the message and the moral of what they were passing along. It was a really moving performance. … I could really feel the emotion inside.

“I could feel that it was like an outpouring through that story of the lack of being able to express how they really want to practice what they believe in their religion.

“Also, in the other story of compassion, when the guard realized that he was part of the regime that was oppressing the girl who was being punished and persecuted just for her beliefs, he came to the realization that what he was doing was wrong. It really was a great way of expressing that feeling that is so powerful—the lack of being able to express themselves freely.”

Joining in, Ms. Crook said, “I would have to agree. The realization that you’re tormenting or judging someone because they feel differently than you may [feel]—it’s really powerful. … If everyone had the compassion that poured over the guard when he was in the situation with the girl, the world would be a lot of a better place.”

“One thing that I took away from the show that I didn’t know anything about before was the whole Dafa [Falun Dafa or Falun Gong] and what that is and how that relates to Chinese culture—classic Chinese culture. And how it was manifested through the performance and through the dance,” she said.

“It made me personally want to go home and read about it and find out more about it and see what it’s all about. I think that the performance was not only entertaining, it was really educational as well.”

Mr. Crook said that the dances he thinks he will remember the most are Dignity and Compassion and The Monkey King Triumphs, which was “really funny and had a light side.” “One story would be really heavy and have such a great moral feel and story behind it, while others were very light and entertaining,” he said.

“I thought that it [the show] told a really great story that someone who is not exposed to the culture would never get to see, and I got to experience something that we’ve never even heard of before," he said.

The show tells one “just how important it is to understand other people’s point of view and to be tolerant of each other," Mrs. Crook said.

NTDTV, a media partner of The Epoch Times, contributed to this article.

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts will stage three more shows in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 29 and 30 and return to the Kennedy Center again Jan. 20 to 24, 2010, bringing completely new programs.

  For more information please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org