Shen Yun Dance

     Hey, wanna catch up on 5,000 years of Chinese culture in one night? Then get ready for Shen Yun, coming this week to the California Center for the Arts in beautiful, downtown Escondido.

     Tickets are a little expensive—ranging from $50 to $165—but Shen Yun puts on one of the most breathtaking shows you have ever seen. As the group correctly points out, the show combines “pure beauty, pure energy, pure wisdom and pure spirituality.”

     The heart of the show is the incredible Chinese dance—leaps, spins, flips and tumbles that are hard to believe. But there is also a mystical blend of traditional Chinese music with Western classical music, of Chinese musical instruments and classical Western instruments.

     Chinese dance was passed down through ancient plays for thousands of years. It was gradually refined and perfected by dancers.  But over the past 60 years of communist rule the art form has been disparaged and nearly destroyed.

     But this Shen Yun group is entirely independent of the Chinese government. The group was formed some nine years ago in New York, attracting dancers, musicians and artists from all over the world. Their goal: to revive this divinely-inspired art form and share it with audiences around the world.

     Besides San Diego, the group is also performing in three other California cities-- Long Beach, Thousand Oaks, and Bakersfield.

     By the way, if you are asking yourself what does Shen Yun mean, it was taken from the phrase Shen Zhou, which means the Divine Land. This was the name for China for thousands of years.

     Go check it out!