MELBOURNE, Australia—“Wonderful, wonderful, the most enjoyable 2 hours! I enjoyed, beautiful, wonderful performance,” exclaimed retired teacher Phillip Samuel, after watching Shen Yun Performing Arts.
Mr. Samuel attended the final performance of Shen Yun at the Arts Centre Melbourne, State Theatre, on Feb. 24. He found it a very touching performance.
Shen Yun is based in New York and in its tenth year touring the world. Their mission is to revive 5000 years of traditional Chinese culture. Since the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government’s systematic campaigns aimed to eradicate traditional culture and the freedom of beliefs.
The use of story dances gives the audience insights into the principles such as benevolence and justice, propriety and wisdom, respect for the heavens, and divine retribution, all come to life, washing over the audience. These virtues the communist regime had tried to destroy.
Mr. Samuel was touched by these dances and felt good would conquer evil and this oppression would soon come to an end. A message he felt was important to everyone.
“It is a very touching performance. Especially those cultural revolutionary people that came to abolish all those things [spiritual artefacts]. That was a really wonderful performance and finally the saintly people came and they took over. That is another wonderful part, I enjoyed that,” he said.
“If China became democratic, it would be the most wonderful country in the world, I feel that way, so much what you call cultural background so great it is.”
He added, “They are performing a very wonderful message, most people who came here enjoyed … in 5 days, many, many thousands of people enjoyed the show and they carried the message with them.”
Shen Yun’s efforts garnered high praise from Mr. Samuel, “wonderful, they are doing a wonderful job especially.”
“Everything that they said morally I agreed with, so China should, change, accept other people and give them freedom and that sort of thing, I totally agree with that. It was very good message.”
Traditional Chinese culture is actually centred on the divine. Mr. Samuel is originally from India and was brought up as a Christian. He felt deeply touched from the spiritual message of Shen Yun and felt it aligned with his own beliefs.
“It is our duty to help others and give good people freedom … so it’s very parallel.”
He said he thoroughly enjoyed all the dances and was particularly struck by Linda Wang playing the erhu, or Chinese violin.
According to Shen Yun’s website, “the erhu is one of the most important Chinese instruments, with a history of over 4,000 years. Though it has only two strings, it can convey a wide range of emotions.”
“I enjoyed all the dances and especially the girl who was playing the stringed instrument, wonderful, that was fantastic, I never heard that before. So great it was.”
Mr. Samuel said he would definitely recommend Shen Yun to his family and encourage them to see it, “I have a daughter in Sydney, she can go and see it.”
Reporting by Steven Le and Bowen Xiao
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.
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.
