DETROIT— George and Rosemarie Lubienski attended Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Detroit Opera House on Thursday, Feb. 6 in honor of a Chinese Benedictine priest who had a strong influence on the couple when they were first married.

The priest left Hong Kong when he was 16 years old and just died six weeks ago.

“I’m sure he’s smiling down from heaven at this because he loved his culture so much. He never went back to China after he was 20 years old and he died at 94, so he had a long life in many different countries. He loved his culture so much and that’s one reason we came tonight to honor him,” explained Mrs. Lubienski, now retired but who ran and owned Mercury Travel Service for 30 years.

“It was absolutely fabulous,” Mrs. Lubienski said of the traditional Chinese music and dance company that is based in New York. Shen Yun brings 5,000 years of Chinese culture to the world.

“It was the costumes, the discipline, and the excellence of everything. It was just beautiful, absolutely beautiful.” she said.

Mrs. Lubienski felt that her friend the priest would have been proud of “the fact that his culture is probably one of the oldest cultures in the world, and influenced many other cultures.“

New York-based Shen Yun is known as the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company. So expressive is this dance form that the performers are able to tell stories through dance alone, stories ranging from ancient to modern times.

“I think it’s a very beautiful tribute to the Chinese culture,” said Mr. Lubienski, a retired attorney, who comes from a family of eight lawyers.

The performance, Mrs. Lubienski felt, could offer lessons to those who saw it, especially the discipline of the dancers.

The Shen Yun dancers are often praised by viewers for displaying perfect unison.

If he could use just one phrase to describe his feelings about Shen Yun, Mr. Lubienski would say “one of peace and happiness.”

Mrs. Lubienski felt very elated.

She was impressed with the spiritual messages, saying, “We’re going to come together in the end, and we’ll all meet in heaven. That’s what manifested to me.”

“I was contrasting it to the sexy, flamboyance, beep bop, hip-hop, everything today. It’s just a peaceful, wonderful, and really much more human than what our contemporary culture here in the U.S. is manifesting now,” she said.

“Very peaceful and very, very impressive,” Mr. Lubienski said.

Reporting by Valerie Avore and Sharon Kilarski

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit Shen Yun Performing Arts.

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.