SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Is ‘Very Uplifting, Very Spiritual,’ Says Emmy Award-Winning Filmmaker

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Shen Yun Is ‘Very Uplifting, Very Spiritual,’ Says Emmy Award-Winning Filmmaker
Fletcher Murray and his wife and daughter at Shen Yun's evening performance at the San Diego Civic Theater on Jan. 19, 2024. Linda Jiang/The Epoch Times

SAN DIEGO—Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Fletcher Murray, accompanied by his wife and daughter, enjoyed Shen Yun Performing Arts at the San Diego Civic Theater.

Mr. Murray shared that the family had originally planned to fly from Oregon to Tulsa to attend Shen Yun three years ago. Unfortunately, the event was canceled due to COVID.
Undeterred, the family still went ahead with the trip, and it turned out to be a pivotal moment in bringing Mr. Murray’s estranged family back together. He credited the beautiful reunion to Shen Yun. On Jan. 19, the family finally got their chance to watch a performance and viewed it as a symbolic conclusion to a chapter of their lives.

“I kept waiting for something to occur—mystical and magical. [Shen Yun] was very, very, very uplifting. Very spiritual,” Mr. Murray expressed.

According to the company’s website, the name “Shen Yun” translates directly into “the beauty of divine beings dance.” Mr. Murray couldn’t agree with that description more.

“It’s so true. I loved it,” he said. “The performers. What a gift, what a gift. I feel like they should send out a tip jar—it would be full. To see all that energy expended each night just for the enjoyment of others—it’s really a selfless occupation.”

Mrs. Murray also thought the show was wonderful. “It was beautiful, so beautiful and balanced,” she said. “It has some humor in there, which I liked. It’s really, really good.”

Shen Yun Performing Arts is the world’s top classical Chinese dance and music company. Presenting a brand-new set of programs each year, the company has been delighting audiences around the world since 2006.

In the decades since the communist regime seized power, Chinese culture was forced to the brink of extinction. The New York-based artists are now seeking to revive China’s 5,000 years of divinely inspired culture and showcase to the world the beauty of China before communism.

Mr. Murray, who had spent time filming in Beijing and Taiwan, is very aware of the human rights issues and the destruction of traditional culture in present-day China. Referring to the spirituality displayed in the show, Mr. Murray said, “It’s so encouraging.”

“America needs this too. America is also losing its spirituality. Church attendance is dropping off, and everybody’s got their face buried in the Internet. The worst imagery you can imagine is getting into our young people’s heads 24/7. It’s getting out of hand,” he explained.

“[Shen Yun] is a great way of [bringing] our own country back to its values because America was [originally] based on a lot of religious values. The Declaration of Independence, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’ We were the first country to have said that.”
Reporting by Linda Jiang and Jennifer Tseng.
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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