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Music Teacher: Shen Yun ‘Revisiting of an ancient civilisation’
Susan Camm and her husband attend Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Canberra Theatre. (The Epoch Times)
CANBERRA—Despite a rainy evening, Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company opened to a packed Canberra Theatre in Australia’s capital on Tuesday, April 17.
Susan Camm, who has given 30 years to teaching music, was experiencing the New York-based company’s performance of classical Chinese dance and music for the first time.
“It’s a revisiting of an ancient civilisation that was based on beauty and harmony, and natural colour, natural things,” she said.
As a music teacher, Ms. Camm appreciated the Shen Yun Orchestra, the tenors, Tian Ge and Hong Ming, soprano Chia-Ning Hsu who sings in the bel canto style, and the erhu virtuoso, Xiaochun Qi, and virtuoso pianist, all award winning artists.
“I’m a music teacher and I love music, and I love art and dance and all of that, because I think it’s a way of expressing things—entertainment, and life is all about that.”
The Shen Yun New York Company Orchestra has the unique distinction of combining ancient Chinese instruments such as the soft-stringed pipa and erhu, with classical Western wind instruments.
She also noticed how uniquely different classical Chinese dance is, with its own methods of training in bearing, form and technique, developed since antiquity.
“When the girls come out, it’s almost like they glide. Like their bodies stay so motionless and smooth … brilliant. And I think the lotus flower Lotus Leaves is the one I was most impressed with, because of the combination, the colour of the fans, how they opened and have the photo of the lotus flower in the background … I thought it was brilliant.
Spectacular handmade costumes and ornate headwear are also unique features of Shen Yun that Ms. Camm admired, and regretted the many traditions that have been lost to the modern world “because that’s what sets them apart.”
Ms. Camm said she was going to tell her friends to come see Shen Yun.
“It’s the first time for me. And I think now I can spread the word, so that when it hopefully comes back next year, I can [tell my friends].”
Shen Yun has a mission to revive China’s 5,000-year divinely inspired culture almost lost from six decades of Chinese communist rule, highlighted in a couple of vignettes exposing the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong in China, a traditional spiritual practice.
Ms. Camm was unaware of the persecution expressed through the story-based dance and found the performance “interesting.”
“I am totally against how the Chinese government trying to crush people; they have no freedom. And to think you are limited and told what you can and cannot do. And again, when you take it back to 5,000 years ago, when people were a beautiful community and had all these lovely cultural things … and passed it on from generation to generation. And when that is stopped and stifled,” a baffled Ms. Camm said.
She said Shen Yun was “like a rebirth, a renaissance … bringing it back in and educating people that have no knowledge of this … the ancient times in China.”
“This is quite delightful, absolutely beautiful,” she concluded.
With reporting by Raiatea Tahana-Reese
Shen Yun Performing Arts, based in New York, tours the world on a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture. Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company will perform at the Canberra Theatre, in Canberra through April 18.
For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts.
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