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Bringing Timeless Culture to Life
By M. Manyu

Though it may now be in its fourth year, Shen Yun Performing Arts continues to be a tale of firsts. The group-an unprecedented gathering of world-class dancers, choreographers, vocalists, and musicians-continues still to blaze new cultural trails.

The firsts begin with the company's vision of cultural renewal. The hope: to rekindle the best of China's classical dance heritage and share it with a broader audience.

Dance and music, with their capacity to vividly tell a story, have proved the perfect medium. The New York-based group, which performed to audiences totaling around 600,000 last year, has been getting the highest of affirmations.

"During last year's shows," says Regina Dong, "when the music would quiet down you could actually here people sniffling, people in tears." They were moved by the performances. "That's unusual in the performing arts these days."

Indeed, what might be called "the Shen Yun difference" is a larger belief that the performing arts can not only harness the cultural depth of the classical arts, finding in them a wellspring of meaning, but invigorate anew such legacies with the means of our day, including high-tech.

One facet of this is the designing of highly-original cinematic backdrops, digitally designed specifically for Shen Yun's shows and meant to fully mine the artistic potential of emerging theatre technology. The backdrops range from placid pastoral scenes to stunningly animated Buddhist caves of Western China. Each serves to heighten that additional notch the drama of the dance or song at hand.

The shows also have meant summoning new degrees of creative ferment on the costume front. A robust costume design team labors painstakingly for months each year to create the visual feast of hues, both vibrant and subtle, that define Shen Yun's adornment. All are original conceptions meant to match perfectly the tone and expression of each piece. At any given show you can expect everything from majestic imperial robes to spritely folk garb.

"There's hardly anyone who doesn't say, 'Wow-that was truly beautiful' after the show," says Ying Chen, a conductor with the company. "We understand beauty to be both inner and outer, you have to have both, and that's something unique about our arts. People can sense it."

Another innovation is the creation of the world's only orchestra whose permanent members consist of players of both Chinese and Western instruments.

While Shen Yun's shows are an enlightening window into China's past, they also break ground by exploring some of the important contemporary issues that face China, if not the world more broadly, today. Past years have given artistic treatment to themes of justice, ethnic identity, and spiritual belief under communist rule.

Indeed, many of Shen Yun's artists have had to grapple with the steely realities of life under authoritarian rule in China. Before coming to the West, some were themselves the victims of state deprivations of the arts, which have even, at several points, reached the extreme of official suppression.

In 2009, Shen Yun Performing Arts will bring its cultural vision to some 20-plus countries around the world for an estimated 300 shows.

Shen Yun Performing Arts will be performing in Southern California on the following dates:

Pasadena Civic Auditorium
Fri, May 8, 7:30pm
Sat, May 9, 2:00pm
Sun, May 10, 2:00pm

Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa
Tue, May 12, 7:30pm
Wed, May 13, 7:30pm

To purchase tickets or for more information, please visit their website, www.divinearts.org