Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "神韵艺术团" in Chinese language version.
The show contains 20 numbers, five musical and 15 dance. Of these 20, six show support of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa), which followers describe as a self-improvement meditation practice. The spiritual movement is outlawed in China, where, according to human-rights critics, Falun Gong practitioners have been jailed and tortured. ...Four songs in the show have lyrics that exhort the listener to be both better aware of tyranny and make a stand against oppression. The two dance dramas, The Risen Lotus Flower and The Power of Awareness, depict, respectively, three courageous young Falun Gong women being beaten in prison and a group of Falun Gong followers resisting the police in a park. Needless to say, none of the battalion of choreographers and composers listed in the program currently lives in China. This is a show where the artistic team is all expatriates and the performers are ethnic Chinese born mostly in foreign climes. There are a considerable number of Canadian Chinese in the cast. The show is certainly a spectacle. The production values are grand in terms of costumes and scenic effects, and the performers are all very good-looking and meticulously disciplined. The choreography is based on traditional movement from classical Chinese dance, such as little running steps, angled bodies, knee raises, abrupt poses and showy gymnastics. The core of the style is how the 16 or so dancers are put in patterns to get the maximum beauty out of their stage picture. There are folk dances from Tibet and Mongolia for both the female (graceful) and male (athletic) ensembles, a traditional fan dance and long-sleeve dance, drum dances, a Manchu court dance on tiny shoes and dance dramas. In the latter, an ambitious Confucian scholar receives enlightenment from a Taoist (A Vanished Dream), while two modern "gangsta" street youths (one in a Mohawk) are embraced by Buddhist reverence (The Fruits of Goodness). Nymphs of the Sea, where each of the winsome young women holds a fan with a long train of blue silk, got the most enthusiastic audience reaction. When they wave the fans standing closely together, the material actually looks like a rippling waterfall. The lush and tuneful original music is a fusion, layering a Western orchestra with traditional Chinese instruments. This show is performed to tape, but the banks of sound equipment are state-of-the-art, and the Sony Centre has never seemed so full and sweeping to the ear. The four opera singers are very accomplished, as is young pianist Yan Li.
HOLIDAY WONDERS, A GLORIOUS BLEND OF CHINESE AND WESTERN PERFORMANCES, TO HIGHLIGHT HOLIDAY SEASON...In a magnificent landscape of music, song, dance and acrobatics that has for centuries inspired the proud and extraordinary culture of the Chinese people, HOLIDAY WONDERS, an extravagantly beautiful production will for the first time be seen in South Florida in a limited two performance schedule, Thursday and Friday, December 27 and 28, at 8 P.M. at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. Presented by Divine Performing Arts, the family-oriented production will be arriving with an international company of sixty plus whose lavish production numbers, colorful sets, dazzling costumes, brilliant choreography, and booming Tang dynasty drums will reveal the fascinating lifestyle and legendary elegance of the traditional China of yesterday coupled with the contemporary influence of today's Western world. HOLIDAY WONDERS carries with it several internationally acclaimed choreographers whose individual contributions are visualized in large scale dance sequences using dozens of dancers in stunning hand-designed costumes as they perform their dramas of ancient China, its epic tales, myths and legends against exquisite digitally projected backdrops. Among them is the story of the legendary woman warrior, "Mulan," who became the subject of a popular Disney movie. The role will be danced by Michelle Ren, winner of the International Chinese Traditional Dance Competition, and the company's leading dancer. Productions of HOLIDAY WONDERS as well as the internationally famed NTDTV CHINESE NEW YEAR SPECTACULAR, recently seen at New York's Radio City Music Hall, are presented throughout the world including North America, Canada, and countries in Asia-Pacific, and Europe. HOLIDAY WONDERS will be presented, Thursday and Friday, December 27 and 28, at the Au Rene Theater. Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
I am puzzled how the reviewer of Shen Yun Dance Company for the Buffalo News' Gusto on Friday May 28, 2010 missed the entire point and theme of this performance. The evening was rich with Chinese dance, music, and culture. The dancers were flawless and without exception obviously superbly trained in dance and theater. The choreography was an interesting array of organic patterns, using multi levels, highlighting soloists, reflecting theme and music, and offered a visual utopia in costume design and the use of fabric and other props with movement. A basic tenant of art from the beginning of time has been to communicate about the world around us. This is a not an artistic downfall. It is the job of an artist to communicate thoughts and ideas.This was done very well by Shen Yun with a universal theme of potential both individually and collectively. The performance by Shen Yun Dance Company was not religious propaganda. It was a lovely evening of cultural dance at its finest, using a theme of Falun Dafa's principles of "Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance". This theme was performed elegantly and flawlessly by well trained dancers. The costuming was oriental, not "over costumed" as stated in the review. If we approach art as open minded consumers we appreciate and learn from it making connections and leaps of thought that assist us in connecting new and different ideas and viewpoints to our own world. In order to fully understand something we need to look at it in context. This performance was a Chinese cultural expression that had a universal theme we can all relate to. That is not propaganda...that is art. And yes, performing groups do market themselves with merchandise, programs, and public relations personnel. And yes, this marketing will be pertinent within the cultural context of the performing group. This should not come as a surprise to a reviewer. As global citizens [it] is our job to accept, welcome, learn ,and grow through the interconnecting opportunities available to us as never before in the global arena that is our world. How lucky we are [that] right here in Buffalo, New York [we are] able to experience the richness of what the world has to offer by our neighbors and by being exposed to world class cultural arts as presented by Shen Yun at Shea's.
In many respects, the Chinese New Year Spectacular resoundingly lives up to its name. The term "spectacular" may whiff of self-promotion, but the show, which played Arie Crown Theater over the weekend, is indisputably a spectacle. Dozens of dancers and musicians flood the stage in a parade of brightly colored, intricately detailed silken costumes, while the instrumentation ranges from traditional drums to bunches of chopsticks.
The New York-based nonprofit organization has three companies touring the world, each dedicated to preserving and presenting aspects of classical Chinese dance and culture via lavishly costumed revues. Hence the many geometrically sparkly sequences celebrating ethnic folk dances or humorous story vignettes drawn from Chinese legends and literature in a Shen Yun performance. But mixed in with all the cheerily choreographed numbers are a few pantomimed numbers that are highly critical of China's internationally condemned record on religious freedom and human rights. These protest numbers, along with operatically sung Chinese songs filled with religiously tinged lyrics, quickly make it apparent that Shen Yun also uses its performing arts platform to preach on behalf of followers of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong)...These wordless protest numbers are also melodramatically simplistic (which could do with Shen Yun's need to easily advocate to an international audience)...But aside from these quibbles about foisted religiosity and strained humorous narration, Shen Yun Performing Arts does put on quite an impressive spectacle when it sticks to the elaborately choreographed classical Chinese dance numbers. And befitting the opera house setting, Shen Yun also features classically trained singers (soprano Haolan Geng particularly stood out) with grand piano accompaniment.The blended live orchestra featuring Asian and European instruments is definitely a luxury. It's also very symbolic of how Shen Yun Performing Arts is reaching out to a global audience to advocate on its behalf for religious freedom. My only wish is that Shen Yun would be more upfront in its advertising about its unabashed proselytizing amid all the dazzling dance performances.
There are some authentic pleasures to be seen on stage: fierce demonstrations of drumming; a haunting Chinese violin solo; choreographed set pieces in which the sinuous calligraphy of the dancers' bodies is elaborated with rippling silks and fans. But too much of it goes against the troupe's stated commitment to preserve the heritage of classical China. One tableau - Descent of the Celestial Kings - includes a pair of improbably western-looking angels with tinsel halos and wings. Another - The Risen Lotus Flower - shows Falun Gong prisoners being tortured but who are illuminated by a spiritual light that pirouettes around them like a digital Tinkerbell. It is all too weird a mix of propaganda and bling.
A lot of it is fun, but the politico-religious aspect is a bit heavy-handed. For those unfamiliar with the movement, Falun Gong — also known as Falun Dafa — is a spiritual practice founded in China in 1992 and later suppressed by the government. The Shen Yun narrators talk about it from the stage and the dance segments dealing with this subject are quite straightforward.
Those stories include the legends of Yue Fei, the Song dynasty general revered for his loyalty, and Mulan, the heroine who joined the army disguised as a man. There is a retelling of a Buddhist monk’s pilgrimage to India, derived from the 16th-century Chinese novel “Journey to the West,” as well as modern tales like “Astounding Conviction,” focusing on the spirit of a peaceful demonstrator arrested in Tiananmen Square.
Shen Yun’s conductor Ying Chen sent the Herald a statement, saying the allegations were "grossly distorted".
Li Hongzhi, known to followers as "master", has courted controversy for his often-bizarre public statements.
If ancient Chinese goddesses were modernized to the 21st century, one imagines that they would look a lot like Vina Lee, the tall, fine-featured, elegant choreographer and dancer whose artistry graces the Chinese Classical Divine Performing Arts Company....The show - which each year features new entries in a smorgasbord of vignettes - takes viewers on a visually dazzling tour of 5,000 years of Chinese history and culture via bravura displays of acrobatics and grand tales told through flourishes of Chinese classical dance. With hundreds of dancers in two dozen carefully designed, richly costumed pieces - everything from colorful handkerchief dances, Imperial-style dances in high platform shoes, drum dances, folk dances and wushu displays - it's a heady blend of the ancient and modern, of traditional Chinese instruments and their Western counterparts, and contemporary experiences expressed using the formality of Chinese classical dance. The true traditional Chinese dance, Lee says, blends three crucial elements: the yun or manner of carrying one's body, the technique and the physical forms, such as the positions and combinations of movements used in training martial artists. Methods of teaching Chinese dance, Lee says, were rarely written down, but although ways of teaching dance may have changed over time, much of the technique and forms have been passed down from generation to generation through wushu training. "Wushu, or martial arts, used in soft ways is dance, and vice versa," she says. "Martial arts never really changed - it got better, but the style did not change." The yun, however, is a different story. The way a people comport themselves depends on the culture, and China's culture has evolved vastly since the Communist Revolution and the modernization of its society. Some of what makes Chinese yun, Lee says, has been lost in the process. "The modern contraction," she says, tightening her midsection into a curve modern dancer Martha Graham would easily recognize, "is very different from the Chinese curve. It is inhale, exhale - that's a different energy." Without standing up from the cafe table, Lee strikes a subtle but definitely different note, curling and rounding her torso to illustrate what immediately seems - even to an untutored eye - to be a more characteristically Chinese pose, one closer to the graceful statues of goddesses such as Kwan Yin and Ho Hsien-Ku. "Lots of shows claim to be Chinese dance," Lee says. "It's familiar to Western audiences, but they may wonder, why do they do this movement or that movement? Even lots of dancers are confused as to what is real Chinese dance." Lee strikes a pose, covering her face flirtatiously with an imaginary fan. "They may look with the eyes like this," she says, glancing over her fan with a bit of come-hither peekaboo. "But in true Chinese dance, the women are conservative, more shy. They are hiding their faces with the fan," she adds, changing her pose slightly to convey a more delicate sensibility.
Now it does seem, from Amnesty International evidence, that followers of this group have suffered brutal persecution; on the other hand, I am reluctant to welcome the teachings of a man who believes that aliens live among us and that homosexuality and mixed-raced marriages are degenerate. This seems a long way from the "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance" presented as the group's principles on stage. But what I really object to is that such a politically motivated performance is being smuggled on to stages around Europe in the name of family entertainment. And at the group's first performance in Britain on Friday at the Festival Hall, I was not alone. While many of the audience - the majority of Chinese origin - applauded, others were appalled. In such a context, any judgment of the piece's artistic merit seems beside the point, but it is a horribly Disneyfied version of the traditional Chinese culture it seeks to celebrate.
Those stories include the legends of Yue Fei, the Song dynasty general revered for his loyalty, and Mulan, the heroine who joined the army disguised as a man. There is a retelling of a Buddhist monk’s pilgrimage to India, derived from the 16th-century Chinese novel “Journey to the West,” as well as modern tales like “Astounding Conviction,” focusing on the spirit of a peaceful demonstrator arrested in Tiananmen Square.
The show contains 20 numbers, five musical and 15 dance. Of these 20, six show support of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa), which followers describe as a self-improvement meditation practice. The spiritual movement is outlawed in China, where, according to human-rights critics, Falun Gong practitioners have been jailed and tortured. ...Four songs in the show have lyrics that exhort the listener to be both better aware of tyranny and make a stand against oppression. The two dance dramas, The Risen Lotus Flower and The Power of Awareness, depict, respectively, three courageous young Falun Gong women being beaten in prison and a group of Falun Gong followers resisting the police in a park. Needless to say, none of the battalion of choreographers and composers listed in the program currently lives in China. This is a show where the artistic team is all expatriates and the performers are ethnic Chinese born mostly in foreign climes. There are a considerable number of Canadian Chinese in the cast. The show is certainly a spectacle. The production values are grand in terms of costumes and scenic effects, and the performers are all very good-looking and meticulously disciplined. The choreography is based on traditional movement from classical Chinese dance, such as little running steps, angled bodies, knee raises, abrupt poses and showy gymnastics. The core of the style is how the 16 or so dancers are put in patterns to get the maximum beauty out of their stage picture. There are folk dances from Tibet and Mongolia for both the female (graceful) and male (athletic) ensembles, a traditional fan dance and long-sleeve dance, drum dances, a Manchu court dance on tiny shoes and dance dramas. In the latter, an ambitious Confucian scholar receives enlightenment from a Taoist (A Vanished Dream), while two modern "gangsta" street youths (one in a Mohawk) are embraced by Buddhist reverence (The Fruits of Goodness). Nymphs of the Sea, where each of the winsome young women holds a fan with a long train of blue silk, got the most enthusiastic audience reaction. When they wave the fans standing closely together, the material actually looks like a rippling waterfall. The lush and tuneful original music is a fusion, layering a Western orchestra with traditional Chinese instruments. This show is performed to tape, but the banks of sound equipment are state-of-the-art, and the Sony Centre has never seemed so full and sweeping to the ear. The four opera singers are very accomplished, as is young pianist Yan Li.
In many respects, the Chinese New Year Spectacular resoundingly lives up to its name. The term "spectacular" may whiff of self-promotion, but the show, which played Arie Crown Theater over the weekend, is indisputably a spectacle. Dozens of dancers and musicians flood the stage in a parade of brightly colored, intricately detailed silken costumes, while the instrumentation ranges from traditional drums to bunches of chopsticks.
There are some authentic pleasures to be seen on stage: fierce demonstrations of drumming; a haunting Chinese violin solo; choreographed set pieces in which the sinuous calligraphy of the dancers' bodies is elaborated with rippling silks and fans. But too much of it goes against the troupe's stated commitment to preserve the heritage of classical China. One tableau - Descent of the Celestial Kings - includes a pair of improbably western-looking angels with tinsel halos and wings. Another - The Risen Lotus Flower - shows Falun Gong prisoners being tortured but who are illuminated by a spiritual light that pirouettes around them like a digital Tinkerbell. It is all too weird a mix of propaganda and bling.
Now it does seem, from Amnesty International evidence, that followers of this group have suffered brutal persecution; on the other hand, I am reluctant to welcome the teachings of a man who believes that aliens live among us and that homosexuality and mixed-raced marriages are degenerate. This seems a long way from the "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance" presented as the group's principles on stage. But what I really object to is that such a politically motivated performance is being smuggled on to stages around Europe in the name of family entertainment. And at the group's first performance in Britain on Friday at the Festival Hall, I was not alone. While many of the audience - the majority of Chinese origin - applauded, others were appalled. In such a context, any judgment of the piece's artistic merit seems beside the point, but it is a horribly Disneyfied version of the traditional Chinese culture it seeks to celebrate.
The New York-based nonprofit organization has three companies touring the world, each dedicated to preserving and presenting aspects of classical Chinese dance and culture via lavishly costumed revues. Hence the many geometrically sparkly sequences celebrating ethnic folk dances or humorous story vignettes drawn from Chinese legends and literature in a Shen Yun performance. But mixed in with all the cheerily choreographed numbers are a few pantomimed numbers that are highly critical of China's internationally condemned record on religious freedom and human rights. These protest numbers, along with operatically sung Chinese songs filled with religiously tinged lyrics, quickly make it apparent that Shen Yun also uses its performing arts platform to preach on behalf of followers of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong)...These wordless protest numbers are also melodramatically simplistic (which could do with Shen Yun's need to easily advocate to an international audience)...But aside from these quibbles about foisted religiosity and strained humorous narration, Shen Yun Performing Arts does put on quite an impressive spectacle when it sticks to the elaborately choreographed classical Chinese dance numbers. And befitting the opera house setting, Shen Yun also features classically trained singers (soprano Haolan Geng particularly stood out) with grand piano accompaniment.The blended live orchestra featuring Asian and European instruments is definitely a luxury. It's also very symbolic of how Shen Yun Performing Arts is reaching out to a global audience to advocate on its behalf for religious freedom. My only wish is that Shen Yun would be more upfront in its advertising about its unabashed proselytizing amid all the dazzling dance performances.
A lot of it is fun, but the politico-religious aspect is a bit heavy-handed. For those unfamiliar with the movement, Falun Gong — also known as Falun Dafa — is a spiritual practice founded in China in 1992 and later suppressed by the government. The Shen Yun narrators talk about it from the stage and the dance segments dealing with this subject are quite straightforward.
I am puzzled how the reviewer of Shen Yun Dance Company for the Buffalo News' Gusto on Friday May 28, 2010 missed the entire point and theme of this performance. The evening was rich with Chinese dance, music, and culture. The dancers were flawless and without exception obviously superbly trained in dance and theater. The choreography was an interesting array of organic patterns, using multi levels, highlighting soloists, reflecting theme and music, and offered a visual utopia in costume design and the use of fabric and other props with movement. A basic tenant of art from the beginning of time has been to communicate about the world around us. This is a not an artistic downfall. It is the job of an artist to communicate thoughts and ideas.This was done very well by Shen Yun with a universal theme of potential both individually and collectively. The performance by Shen Yun Dance Company was not religious propaganda. It was a lovely evening of cultural dance at its finest, using a theme of Falun Dafa's principles of "Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance". This theme was performed elegantly and flawlessly by well trained dancers. The costuming was oriental, not "over costumed" as stated in the review. If we approach art as open minded consumers we appreciate and learn from it making connections and leaps of thought that assist us in connecting new and different ideas and viewpoints to our own world. In order to fully understand something we need to look at it in context. This performance was a Chinese cultural expression that had a universal theme we can all relate to. That is not propaganda...that is art. And yes, performing groups do market themselves with merchandise, programs, and public relations personnel. And yes, this marketing will be pertinent within the cultural context of the performing group. This should not come as a surprise to a reviewer. As global citizens [it] is our job to accept, welcome, learn ,and grow through the interconnecting opportunities available to us as never before in the global arena that is our world. How lucky we are [that] right here in Buffalo, New York [we are] able to experience the richness of what the world has to offer by our neighbors and by being exposed to world class cultural arts as presented by Shen Yun at Shea's.
