SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Brings Back What Was Lost to the World, Says Houston Audience

Dec 28, 2022

HOUSTON—Sonia Vieira, concert pianist and the former dean of a music school in Rio de Janeiro, knows intimately what it takes to create art that can calm the heart and move the soul.

She found that in Shen Yun Performing Arts.

“We can see in the face of the dancers—there is a purity,” Ms. Vieira said. She attended a performance of the New York-based classical Chinese dance company with her son, Victor Lunetta, a laywer, at the Jones Hall for the Performing Arts on Dec. 27. The purity of beauty and goodness moved the mother and son, who shared that Shen Yun was a rare experience.

“It’s the message of beauty, of sensibility,” Ms. Vieira said. “That’s the most important thing today, because our world is full of violence, and the refinement is not searched anymore, and I think that we should.”

“With art, we can fill that. Art brings us that,” she said.

Mr. Lunetta said what he found most beautiful were the ethics behind the movements and stories, what he felt were universal principles.

“Gratitude, respect, and also tradition,” he said. “The respect for human life, and the gentle way in which it is depicted through symbols instead of dire imagery. And we see the souls ascending, and so many other things that are symbols to pass the message in a more gentle way.”

“I think these elements are very important, especially today. And I think they positively link these elements that are common to all of us, to China, and I think that’s important for the West to see,” he said.

While the China we know today is a communist country ruled by an atheist regime, China was once known as the Celestial Empire. For 5,000 years, the China before communism was one that most valued harmony between heaven, earth, and humankind. According to its website, Shen Yun takes as its mission to revive this grand civilization, and share it with the world through music and dance.

Al Kinback enjoyed Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Jones Hall for the Performing Arts in Houston on Dec. 27, 2022. (Sally Sun/The Epoch Times)

Al Kinback, an engineer and consultant, felt a deep reverence for the deep tradition he said he saw in the show. To him, the breadth and depth of 5,000 years of divinely inspired civilization were phenomenal.

“You can’t even fathom how deep the culture is,” he added.

“[The mission of revival] is absolutely important. It is, and it has to be kept out there for people so that they can understand what was, what is, and what can be,” he said.

Mr. Kinback and his wife had seen a performance a few years prior and wanted to attend again, but the pandemic prolonged their return by a couple of years.

“It’s beautiful. It’s just really just so extravagant,” Mr. Kinback said. “We’ve been here before and we just love Shen Yun. It’s just so breathtaking to watch.”

“It’s really different from anything you can go see,” he said.

While watching this year’s performance, Mr. Kinback was struck by the mention of “truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance” in one of the vignettes. These are the three principles of the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, which many of the Shen Yun artists also follow. This is a core reason the company has been banned in China.

“I'd like to know more about, not Shen Yun, but the actual Zhuan Falun,” Mr. Kinback said after the performance, referencing the main text of Falun Gong, which he determined to purchase. “I want to learn more about it.”

“Compassion,” he said, “that’s what it should be. People should be doing that. We’ve lost our way ... we’re just all doing our own thing and we’ve lost our way as what’s the right thing to do. Not everybody, obviously, it’s a generality. But it’s important to get back, so we can focus and concentrate on that.”

Reporting by Sherry Dong and Sally Sun.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.