Shen Yun: A Day in San Francisco

[tuftears]

dracosphynx had suggested a while back that we head up to see Shen Yun, "the world's premier Chinese classical music and dance performance". It seemed like a good idea at the time: it would get me out of the house and presumably into an environment with more Chinese people (and maybe even cute Chinese grrls) around. And the show would probably be artistically inspiring!

So how did it work out?

Actually not too bad a day in all. We started at 10 AM with dracosphynx picking me up. He had forewarned me to dress up nicely, so I dithered a bit, but in the end, settled on a rather sober business suit, the same one I've had for some twenty years now. I need to figure out some other clothes I can wear to 'dressy' occasions! I made Fluttershy-like whining at Dracosphynx, but in the end, he prised me out of the house successfully.

Me: "Hmm, did I turn the burners off? We'd better turn around and make sure!"

Dracosphynx: *laughs evilly, floors it and turns onto the highway*

We headed to Millbrae to take BART up to San Francisco. Traffic in SF is normally pretty horrible, so this saved us a lot of worry! There, we exited on Civic Street... right into the Westfield Mall. I was a bit surprised. How amazingly convenient!

There, we had lunch at M.Y. China (Martin Yan's Chinese restaurant), ordering several of their dim sum dishes, and a side order of bok choy. We tried:

- Baked barbecue chicken bao. This was my favorite! The bun itself had been baked and was sweet with a flakey surface, more like a cake or muffin than bread.

- Mongolian beef bao. This was actually too mild to properly be Mongolian beef, and if we had it again, I'd ask them to make it spicy. It wasn't bad, but it needed authority.

- Juicy wild boar dumplings. These were too gingery to be able to taste anything of the meat.

I'd probably try the restaurant again, but with an eye toward avoiding the dishes that didn't work so well last time.

From there, we wandered around the mall a bit, and hit up a fine chocolatier for dessert, where Dracosphynx and I picked up some chocolate truffles covered in cacao nibs. (decadent!) Dracosphynx pointed out a Japanese stationery store, but I wound up heading to Blick's Art Supply down the street and getting a cat mannikin there (and a human mannikin as well).

Up to this point, I had been threatening Dracosphynx with biting if it should turn out the theater crowd was mostly T-shirts and jeans, as I was feeling a bit uncomfy in my dress shoes and suit for running about. When we finally got there, my impression was... well, some of these people are dressed rather comfily; it was in fact generally an older crowd sampling the culture, so they dressed like 'old people', in sweaters and knitted vests and the like. So much for my ambitions of finding cute grrls!

So how was the show itself?

Hmmm.

"Falun Dafa will save us all!"

I had been expecting something more like Cirque du Soleil with a Chinese theme, or perhaps a sampling of Chinese history and culture. Instead, what we got was much like a variety show with Chinese songs and dances adapted to Western tastes, sometimes too much so. For example, there were several songs in the show, but each of them was sung in operatic style, heavy on vibrato. I would have liked to see Chinese instruments and tradional voices instead.

One interesting thing they did was to use a film-projected background. This saved them from needing a ton of painted backdrops and props, but it also caused any dancers close to the background to nearly vanish, due to the background being projected over their bodies. However, they used this to add special effects at time; for instance, during the Pilgrimage to the West act, they showed a river with a giant fish swimming in it, then an ogre leaping across the river... and when he disappeared down the bottom of the background, he then sprang out (as a live dancer) from the back of the stage. They used this effect quite a few times!

Dracosphynx and I both liked the Shaolin monk dance "act" best; it was the closest to the kung fu movie style, with mock-staff drilling. We also enjoyed the dance of the Phoenix fairies, where the dancers wore beautiful skirts that went from near-white at the waist to deep purple at the hem, and would flare out into plum blossom-like circles as they spun.

Shen Yun fell flat, for me, in their several 'modern era' skits chronicling the Chinese regime as repressing practitioners of Falun Dafa. I'm not pro-Chinese government, but it felt rather at-odds with the general theme of ancient Chinese traditions and culture. It would have fared better to cast it in the form of an allegorical fable. Evil emperor, oppressed peasants, priests spreading a message of peace and inner strength, it would have worked!

It's interesting that in the program book, they solicit musicians and performers interested in participating in Shen Yun, but they go on to add that the troupe follows Falun Gong principles and requires the performers to adhere to their teachings.

Anyway, it was an interesting show, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it for others. As a work of art, it doesn't hang together well.

Still, in all it was a pretty good day out!