STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Ms. Elisabeth Lindborg has seen world-acclaimed Shen Yun Performing Arts perform before. This year, she brought her friend, Ms. Anne-Christine Olsson Behr, and her daughter, Isabelle, to see Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company at Cirkus in Stockholm, on Monday, April 25.
“It’s really precious. It has both beauty and a spiritual aspect to it that I like. And I also think it’s good that it brings up the issue of the persecution,” Ms. Lindborg said after the show.
She was referring to the current-day suppression and persecution in China of followers of the traditional meditation practice of Falun Gong. In one scene, a young man is killed by state police for his beliefs, and as his mother grieves, the backdrop shows a scene where heaven opens up.
Ms. Behr can’t understand why Falun Gong practitioners face this kind of persecution because of their faith.
“The illustration of the ascension to the heavens was so powerful, with the connection between us and the Divine, that it is here to help us. It was very powerful, to find more people who truly believe in this,” she said.
About the show overall, she said, “I was very moved by it, by all this goodness, beauty and skill.”
Her daughter, Isabelle, thought of her friend Julia who is from Japan, and thought that she should see it.
Ms. Behr is a Montessori teacher and dancer and has a wish for Shen Yun. She wishes that there were more of these shows, in everyday life, in school, from kindergarten and up, and in society in general, because what it expresses is the understanding of a better and different way of life, she said.
She feels that the youth of today find it hard to accept good moral values, but that this is something that the Shen Yun shows could change. She returns again to the topic of dance, and says: “I have to go home and practice spinning! I’m completely fascinated to have seen this glimpse of it. I have no idea how they do it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
But she can’t even wait to get home, so she practices a little spinning right there, outside the hall!
Reporting by Yvonne Kleberg and Barbro Plogander.
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts will perform at the Cirkus Stockholm until April 27. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
“It’s really precious. It has both beauty and a spiritual aspect to it that I like. And I also think it’s good that it brings up the issue of the persecution,” Ms. Lindborg said after the show.
She was referring to the current-day suppression and persecution in China of followers of the traditional meditation practice of Falun Gong. In one scene, a young man is killed by state police for his beliefs, and as his mother grieves, the backdrop shows a scene where heaven opens up.
Ms. Behr can’t understand why Falun Gong practitioners face this kind of persecution because of their faith.
“The illustration of the ascension to the heavens was so powerful, with the connection between us and the Divine, that it is here to help us. It was very powerful, to find more people who truly believe in this,” she said.
About the show overall, she said, “I was very moved by it, by all this goodness, beauty and skill.”
Her daughter, Isabelle, thought of her friend Julia who is from Japan, and thought that she should see it.
Ms. Behr is a Montessori teacher and dancer and has a wish for Shen Yun. She wishes that there were more of these shows, in everyday life, in school, from kindergarten and up, and in society in general, because what it expresses is the understanding of a better and different way of life, she said.
She feels that the youth of today find it hard to accept good moral values, but that this is something that the Shen Yun shows could change. She returns again to the topic of dance, and says: “I have to go home and practice spinning! I’m completely fascinated to have seen this glimpse of it. I have no idea how they do it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
But she can’t even wait to get home, so she practices a little spinning right there, outside the hall!
Reporting by Yvonne Kleberg and Barbro Plogander.
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts will perform at the Cirkus Stockholm until April 27. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
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