DALLAS—Shen Yun Performing Arts performed its first of three shows at the Music Hall at Fair Park on Feb. 5. Mr. Maher Maso, mayor of Frisco, was there with his wife and daughter to experience Shen Yun’s depiction of 5000 years of traditional Chinese culture though dance and music.

“I am really happy to be here tonight with my family, my wife and my daughter. It was exciting to see this,” said Mayor Maso.

Speaking at the VIP reception Mayor Maso spoke of the honor of having Shen Yun perform in Dallas, of how the community of Frisco is “working very hard to preserve its culture and its history,” and how he could therefore appreciate this performance even more and how important it is for the people of Frisco to see Shen Yun. He said, “I think you can understand why the display in the performances tonight, how important it is for us to learn from our past. So thank you very much.

“Watching the performance tonight, clearly there was a historical perspective and there was a very exciting historical perspective."

The mayor was particularly moved by the passion and inner beauty of the performers. He said, “the performers did a wonderful job in putting things into perspective in today’s world, obviously, and it was clear to me that the performers were not only very good at what they do, but clearly they have a passion for it. They have a passion about telling that story."

Some of the Shen Yun performances tell of ancient legends and heroes from the past, people who inspired others. As a leader of a town, Mayor Maso was inspired by the performance about the general Han Xin (The Great Han Xin) who was an inspiration to all leaders in Chinese history.

“[Han Xin] showed the calmness and not reacting of emotion and how it pays off later. How there's benefits to doing the right thing. It's showing kindness even though you're a person of power. It shows the weakness of man where most men would have reacted. It told the story well.”

One of the trademarks of Shen Yun is story-telling through the dances. The stories range from ancient legends and stories to modern day tales of courage such as the persecution of Falun Gong in today's China under the communist regime.

The Mayor said, “Some parts of it were really sad. Some of it was very exciting. We really enjoyed it ... It touched upon some modern day problems and things that are going on today. It captured the history of China and history of the many years of the culture. It also put it in today's perspective. We enjoyed it.

The New York based Shen Yun performs with a live orchestra of traditional Chinese and Western instruments as well as some solo performances.

“The music was very good especially how instruments were highlighted. It was very good. The quality was good. I didn't notice it was a live orchestra at first. I noticed the quality and I looked for it. You knew it was very good."

He was also impressed with the erhu, China's two-stringed instrument.

“The erhu was very good. I like seeing things I've never seen before. It was such taste and quality that you've never known existed.”

Fairies of the Clouds depicting celestial fairies in the heavens touched the Mayor’s heart. He said, “one of my favorite scenes was the clouds. That was very good. It brought you into the story. You felt like you were in the clouds. It brought you closer to the story being told. You forgot you were not in the clouds.”

Shen Yun uses state of the art digital backdrops; beautifully designed and bursting with color, the backdrops enhance the performances by blending and drawing the audience into the performances, adding an extra dimension.

“The backdrop was ... to me, was part of the scenery but you didn't notice it because you felt like you were in it. It all made you feel part of it. You didn't feel like you were a part of the seat.”

Shen Yun will perform two more shows in Dallas on Saturday Feb. 6 at the Music Hall at Fair Park, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. For more information, please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org

Original article: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/29187/