Shen Yun Performing Arts brought China’s 5,000 years of civilization and its rich culture to life on stage at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto the first week of April.
“The underlying theme of the entire evening was love, joy, and peace. You could feel it, I could feel it in the entire performance. And yet, there were aspects of the performance that were high energy and beautifully inspiring as well,” said Nicky Billou, the founder of eCircle Academy.
“And you could see on their faces, this joy, this love, this fire, this passion. It was magnificent,” he added.
Also among the audience was Joaquin Valdepeñas, a two-time Juno Award winner and a founding member of Amici Chamber Ensemble.
“It’s so colorful and beautiful and vibrant. That was the thing I thought was most striking,” said Mr. Valdepeñas, who is also a three-time Grammy award nominee.
“The cohesiveness and how together everything is, is flawless. It’s quite impressive,” he added.
Mi Hyon Kim, a violinist, found that Shen Yun “was so impressive, very exciting,” adding that “I like the colors of the costumes they were using, all the movements with the flowers and [other props]. It was very, very impressive.”
Shen Yun also travels with a live orchestra, which combines classical Chinese instruments with Western instruments.
Mr. Valdepeñas had high praise for the musicians.
“The music is very well-played, the orchestra is very good. Also the tempo has to be just right for the dancers to dance, that could be tricky. It was terrific, very good,” he said.
“I really enjoyed how they incorporated the Chinese instruments, because they’re played very well, too. And so it became a mixture of Chinese and Western music together; I think the blend was really well done,” he said.
Shen Yun’s mission is to revive China’s traditional culture after communists took control of the country in 1949.
Mr. Billou, who is also an author and the co-host of “The Thought Leader Revolution” podcast, said he has always been drawn to the Chinese people and their culture and to reading and understanding Chinese literature and philosophy.
With that background, he said those aspects “permeated the entire evening” and he was touched by the underlying values Shen Yun presents. He called its mission an act of bravery and courage.
“Another thing that permeated the evening was courage, absolute total courage. These are people that are standing up against tyranny, that are standing up against hate, that are standing up against oppression,” Mr. Billou said.
He noted that when the Soviet Union was defeated, that chapter of communism ended and “everybody thought that was the end of communism. But it wasn’t. It was just a major part of communism being defeated.”
“Right now, there’s another aspect, another chapter of communism, which is screaming loudly, shouting loudly. And it’s even made its way into many Western countries,” he said.
Mr. Billou said these Western countries are finding themselves “from within fighting against this evil tyranny,” and “I believe that the people here that put on this brave performance are part of the forces of light that will vanquish the forces of darkness.”
Shen Yun’s 2024 world tour will continue through May.
Reporting by NTD News, Toronto, Canada
