SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Attorney Says Shen Yun Is a Manifestation of the Divine

Apr 19, 2019

FORT LAUDERDALE---Attorney Mary Luz Rodriguez saw the manifestation of the divine in the colors, harmony, and message of Shen Yun’s performance.

“Every artistic manifestation is a manifestation of the divinity inside you,” Rodriguez said.

“And this [performance was] overwhelmingly gorgeous and just really, really uplifts you.”

The attorney saw the performance for the second year at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on April 18.

Shen Yun Performing Arts is the leading classical Chinese dance company, based in New York and with a mission to promote authentic Chinese culture to a modern audience. Its program boasts an array of performances including classical Chinese dance vignettes, vocal soloists, and stories expressed through dance.

Divine Message

Rodriguez, who practices at a law firm run by her husband, and co-owns a sanctuary with him, said Shen Yun’s divine message allowed the audience to connect with their inner selves.

“We should love each other and respect each other,” she said

“At the end of the day we are all the same, we are all one.”

Shen Yun, through its stories and songs, retells the values and ideas lying at the heart of traditional Chinese culture, which ultimately revolve around a belief in the divine. Indeed, China was at one stage called Shen Zhou, meaning divine land. For thousands of years, Chinese people have observed values and principles stemming from this belief, including benevolence, truthfulness, righteousness, and propriety.

These traditions continued uninterrupted in China from generation to generation up until it was decimated during the Cultural Revolution, a campaign launched by the Chinese Communist Party in the late 1960s to destroy traditional Chinese ideas and beliefs to cement its authoritarian atheistic rule.

For Rodriguez, the performance provoked an inner journey in search of truth, and to break away from factors that do not align with the truth.

This included walking away from lies, such as those presented by communism.

“[Communism] is a lie, it’s a lie! A lie is an intentional manifestation of an idea that they know that is not true, but they still say it as propaganda and brainwashing,” she said.

“So it is very important for the souls to learn that message. So they can see through everything that they’ve been fed, that is not true. What is true is what is in your heart, and in your soul, and that is what is true.”

Shen Yun depicts the devastation wrought by communist rule through its stories about the persecution of practitioners of spiritual discipline Falun Dafa in China.

Inner Beauty

Rodriguez also recognized that the beauty of the performance did not just arise from the physical aspects of the production, but also came from something deep within the dancers.

“You have to have a discipline about yourself in order to be able to express it,” she said.

“You have to be in a good place for yourself in order to be able to show the beauty, and show the harmony. That is something that you can feel.

“I absolutely think that they have inner beauty that they express to others.”

With reporting by Sally Sun.

The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time and has covered audience reactions since the company’s inception in 2006.