NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Masato Koizumi, a flight science engineer, drove seven hours just to see Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts on May 10. Mr. Koizumi had watched Shen Yun for the first time three weeks ago in a different city, and the performance had left a deep impression.
Based in New York, Shen Yun was founded in 2006 and is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. Since its inception, Shen Yun has expanded from one to eight equally sized companies that tour around the world simultaneously, reviving traditional Chinese culture and showcasing the beauty of “China before communism.”
Shen Yun’s program includes story-based dances, some of which are set in modern-day China and depict the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of followers of Falun Dafa, a self-cultivation practice that teaches the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
“I’m really utterly shocked and saddened by the fact that the persecution is happening in communist China,“ Mr. Koizumi said. ”Usually, I find that people tend to bow down under pressure, but it looks like Shen Yun [perseveres in] keeping the ancient traditional Chinese culture intact, regardless of any opposition and regardless of any persecution or any interference.”“Something like [Shen Yun] is truly beautiful [and] cannot be explained with words,” he said. “It’s indescribable. What really intrigued me about Shen Yun’s performance is how [they] can convey virtues and morality, like truthfulness, compassion, forbearance.”
Mr. Koizumi was impressed by Shen Yun’s ability to “convey the meaning of what is morality, what does it mean to be a good person, through art, through dance.”
“It’s something you'll never be able to learn from everyday life,” he said.
“If you don’t have the moral character, whatever you do, how expert you are, it doesn’t really mean anything,” he said. “I found that a profound meaning. ... What does it really mean to be like a good person? What is morality? I think that is something we can’t really [clarify] with words. But from Shen Yun’s performance, I really feel that through their dance.”
“When I see their dance or see their art, it makes me become like a new person,” Mr. Koizumi said. “It’s like [being] reborn. ... It’s very enlightening.”
Mr. Koizumi said that he saw gracefulness and selflessness in Shen Yun’s performance, and that these qualities were what left him feeling enlightened.
“It was an eye-opener when I watched Shen Yun, [to see] that the ancient Chinese culture actually emphasizes selflessness, and [that] true spirituality actually comes from something that is really inside,” Mr. Koizumi said.
“In a world where we pursue after material things, in a materialistic world, I fear the true values, like the fundamentals of what it means to be a human, [are] kind of becoming degraded. I think Shen Yun is really the epitome of reminding ourselves what is literally the fundamentals of being a human being.”
