ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.— “It’s monumental. Beautiful. Just breathtaking,” said Michael Degnan, a family physician with his own practice. He brought his wife, Mai, to see Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Mahaffey Theater April 27.
They had traveled from a small town in central Florida, about 100 miles away, he said. His wife had never seen Shen Yun before “and always wanted to see it,” so they made the drive.
“I particularly liked the [dance] about the monks,” he said, referring to When Shaolin Monks Protected the Emperor. The dance tells the legend of how the Shaolin monks came to eat meat. (For centuries, eating meat was forbidden for China’s Buddhist monks.)
“Shen Yun’s mini-drama pieces draw upon stories and legends that span China’s history. …“ The stories are told through dance in less than ten minutes each, and ”every dance embodies traditional Chinese values,” according to the Shen Yun website.
Shen Yun’s orchestral music, all original scores, combines the sounds and instruments of East and West to create a unique, harmonious sound. Its vocal music, sung in bel canto style, features lyrics that reflect on the meaning of human life and have universal meaning.
‘A Sacred Song’
Dr. Degnan especially liked the lyrics of A Sacred Song as well as the soprano’s rendition. “That was beautiful because I knew what she was saying.” (The English translation of the Chinese lyrics is displayed on the large digital backdrop.)
He said he felt the meaning was universal. “I really felt [the song] talks to a lot of people, talks to a lot of cultures,” he said.
In traditional Chinese culture, man must be in harmony with heaven and earth. “Mortals and divine beings merge on stage as one,” the Shen Yun website states. “Principles such as benevolence and justice, propriety and wisdom, respect for the heavens, and divine retribution, all come to life, washing over the audience.”
“I think the whole way it [the traditional culture] is presented, in the symmetry, and the movements, and the flow of the things, you can see that symbolized, and it’s strong,” Dr. Degnan said. “That’s probably the thing that strikes me the most—how it’s all put together. It’s amazing.”
Freedom of Belief
After the performance, the doctor emailed the reporter: “My wife wanted me to let you know that she and her family had escaped from North Vietnam to South Vietnam due to religious persecution and then again from South Vietnam to America for the same reason when the communists took over South Vietnam.
“Because of this, the Shen Yun performance was even more important to her, particularly the last dance. She is very happy to have seen these expressions of freedom and culture and feels very strongly that people should know what injustices are going on in the world.”
The doctor was referring to Divine Mercy, which portrays the battle between good and evil. In the dance, police pounce on Falun Dafa practitioners who have gone to Tiananmen Square to uphold their belief in Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance, according to the program book.
Since 1999, the Chinese regime has persecuted practitioners of Falun Dafa, a traditional self-cultivation system.
Reporting by Jada Yeung and Louise Rothman
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.
The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
