SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Touches Washington Theatergoers With Messages of Perseverance and Faith

Feb 05, 2024
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Shen Yun Touches Washington Theatergoers With Messages of Perseverance and Faith
Shen Yun Performing Arts New World Company's curtain call at The Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington D.C., on Feb. 2, 2024. (Li Sha/The Epoch Times)
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Greg Harris, a social worker, and Sharon Harris, a neuroscientist, watched Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center Opera House on Feb. 4. While Mr. Harris had seen Shen Yun before, it was Ms. Harris’ first experience of the world’s premiere classical Chinese dance and music company.

“The storytelling was amazing,” Ms. Harris said. “Everything about it—the precision, all the colors, the story—just came to life.”

New York-based Shen Yun was founded in 2006. Its mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture through classical Chinese dance and music, and it now has eight companies of equal size touring the world simultaneously.
Shen Yun performs with a live orchestra that combines Western and traditional Chinese instruments, such as the erhu, a two-stringed instrument that amazed Ms. Harris.

“To make that much out of two strings … it’s magnificent,” she said. “You could just feel the music … from the inside.”

Ms. Harris was also impressed by the story-based dances that were part of Shen Yun’s program.

“It really is touching—all of it, all the stories,” she said. “[They’re] important stories. It’s not frivolous.”

Some of the story-based dances are set in modern-day China and depict the perseverance of followers of Falun Dafa, who are persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party for practicing their faith. Falun Dafa is a spiritual practice that teaches the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Ms. Harris felt that she was able to resonate with the values portrayed in Shen Yun’s performance.

“Standing for your faith and dying for your faith if you have to, we believe in that,” Ms. Harris said. “It was beautiful, it really was.”

During the performance, the audience learns that Shen Yun cannot be seen in China, which Mr. Harris felt was unfortunate. However, he congratulated Shen Yun for its growth and praised Shen Yun for its efforts to share Chinese culture.

“The fact that they don’t do this production in China and that it has grown to where now they have multiple companies that perform all over the world—that’s a great thing,” he said. “To get the story out, to share the story, to share the culture, to share about the history, that was very enriching.”

Mr. Harris also shared that the messages he saw in the stories Shen Yun performed were of perseverance, faith, love, and kindness.

“The whole purpose is to … continue to believe in that, trust in that, [and] live by that,” he said. “There are multiple messages about … the road to heaven, and so that was interesting to hear.”

Reporting by Jenny Jing and Wandi Zhu.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.

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