SAN DIEGO—“I really enjoyed the music, and the dance, and the choreography, but transcending all of that I think is the underlying culture and the spirituality of the show,” said John Kumar, a senior Enterprise Architect born in India and now residing in San Diego. Mr. Kumar has worked in many industries, including media and entertainment, in the U.S., Canada and India, now an entrepreneur he has started and run a number of companies. He watched Shen Yun Performing Arts at the San Diego Civic Theatre on the night of July 15, and said it was “great, fantastic!”

Mr. Kumar thought that the live orchestra was very nice, and having English subtitles projected on the background screens all added to the experience. He said he really enjoyed the music, the stories and the dances depicting different ethnicities. And he was also pleasantly surprised by the spirituality of the show.

He said, “It's very colorful, it's very soothing to the eyes, the music is very great. I enjoyed the soprano and the tenor.

“The music, the color, the choreography, the culture, the history, I think it's all [blended together] really well,” he said.

Shen Yun’s dances are story-based. Each dance is inspired by an ancient tale, depicting heroic figures from China’s past. The stories tell of great virtues—courage, loyalty and goodness—and are set against backdrops of magnificent landscapes, temples, battlefields and serene country life.

Mr. Kumar said he loved all the stories, from Mongolia to Tibet, and learned a lot about China’s ethnic groups.

The story called Wu Song Battles the Tiger was one of his favorite dances, he said.

“I thought the man killing the tiger was a funny one. He's drunk yet he kills a tiger! That was funny.”

Mr. Kumar said he especially appreciated the spirituality of the show.

“I really enjoyed the music, and the dance, and the choreography, but transcending all of that I think is the underlying culture and the spirituality of the show.

“One thing that struck me personally was that the 5,000 year-old Chinese story is very similar to the Christian [story]: the Creator comes down. I never knew that about the Chinese culture, so it's brand new, something I learned today, seeing the show.”

Mr. Kumar referred to the opening scene The Emperor Ushers in a Glorious Age. Throughout the generations, the people of China have believed that their rich culture was a gift from the heavens, and that divine beings came to impart culture and offer salvation to humans.

He also enjoyed the contemporary piece about the Falun Dafa spiritual movement which shows a dramatization of a family torn apart under the present communist regime. However, the tragedy does not go unnoticed, as beings in heaven are watching and good is rewarded with good and evil is punished.

“I think that's fantastic, I think it's true to life, sort of covering up the sense of people, Chinese people; but yet there is hope. So I really enjoyed that piece,” Mr. Kumar said.

He said he’s been to Taiwan many times, and also to the Mainland briefly, but this is the first time he has seen classical Chinese dance.

Of Shen Yun he said, “It's gorgeous. I love it. I've been all over the world, I've been to the Russian ballet, the London Symphony and the Vienna Orchestra, all of the world literally, but one of the things that struck me was that when the Chinese women moved, it's like floating. It's not just walking, but floating in the air ... I'm so excited about it. But it's simply new to me, I hadn't seen this form of art before.”

Shen Yun Performing Arts has concluded its performances at the San Diego Civic Theatre, and now travels to Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose. For more information about Shen Yun’s world tour visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts.

Original article: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/39323/