The Positive Energy Behind Shen Yun’s ‘Healing’ Effects

Shen Yun Performing Arts's curtain call at The Bushnell, The William H. Mortensen Hall, in Hartford, Conn, on Feb. 8, 2020. (Edward Dye/The Epoch Times)

A disabled marine veteran walked into a Shen Yun performance with chronic pain but left feeling only relief and gratitude. A man suffering greatly from the effects of cancer heard Shen Yun’s unique music and that night began his journey of healing. Headaches disappear, worries of the day melt away. It’s not even uncommon for audience members on their way out of the theaters to say that seeing Shen Yun has changed their outlook on life.

Medical professionals in the audience are seldom surprised when told of such cases; they, too, bring up the long-proven healing powers of art, or the fact that music therapy extends back through antiquity. Some even encourage people to see Shen Yun Performing Arts specifically, to bolster the spirit, which in turn helps strengthen the immune system. To many in the audience who are knowledgeable about health and wellness, New York-based Shen Yun, the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, is the perfect example of the power of the body, mind, and spirit working in harmony.

‘A Perfect Prescription for Joy’

Lisa Miller is a doctor of internal medicine and believes the work of a physician is similar to an art. When she saw Shen Yun artists perform, she felt as if they were “physicians of beauty and grace and chemistry and electricity,” she said in October in Louisville, Kentucky.

“Being a physician, I use my hands to get things done and take care of my patients, while these performers use their bodies, their gestures, their fingers, they used every part of their body to heal, as what they did tonight was a form of medicine. It was a perfect prescription for joy and pageantry and beauty and honor, and everything is just good and magical right now,” Miller said. “And we need it. It’s the perfect prescription for happiness.”

Dr. Lisa Miller saw Shen Yun in Louisville, Ky., on Oct. 9, 2021. (NTD Television)

Miller had missed the performance a year ago, due to pandemic-related theater closures, so when she saw Shen Yun had returned she said to herself there was no way she would miss it.

As many mental health professionals have warned since the beginning of the pandemic, we must take care to avoid a lifestyle of isolation and fear because of the virus—not only could it cause a “second pandemic” of  depression and anxiety, but such poor mental health will end up further compromising people’s physical health as well.

Having seen the performance, Miller declared Shen Yun to be the perfect remedy to the current climate of anxiety.

“It’s the perfect prescription for the pandemic,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a message of hope, a message of calmness, and a message of peace, of serenity. It’s a message of joy, a message of hope, diversity, nature, love, faith, beauty, calmness, inspiration, she said.

“It is just truly people expressing love and graciousness by using their bodies, by the way they fly so effortlessly through the air, and their facial expressions, and how they interact with each other,” she said. “That said more than anything, and it just made me feel hopeful.”

“I feel absolute, pure joy. I feel enlightened, I feel empowered, I feel grateful. I feel honored that I was in the same room with these performers and these musicians,” she said. “It’s just a message of hope. After leaving here, I feel like everything’s going to be fine.”

‘Clean and Pure’

Shen Yun’s dancers often express their wish to bring the audience something that is truly good. More than entertainment, they strive to create something that uplifts humanity, elevates the spirit, and inspires kindness in the human heart.

“Art can elevate us—and I think art is something we all need in our lives,” says principal dancer Evangeline Zhu. “There’s actually a lot of hopelessness and listlessness in the world, but then suddenly you see this scene of wonder, and it kind of washes away the negative. … You see something bright and positive—and grand. You experience something greater than yourself, and somehow the day-to-day troubles feel lesser.” 

Principal dancer Evangeline Zhu. (NTD Television)

All of Shen Yun’s dancers are spiritual cultivators, who live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

Meditation is a part of their daily, rigorous training. In this aspect, the artists are following a path of tradition. In ancient China, artists cultivated virtue, and art was meant to nurture goodness and celebrate the divine.

The name “Shen Yun” means “the beauty of divine beings dancing.”

‘You Can See the Light’

Antonio Divine came to a recent Fort Lauderdale performance full of complaints. His back ached, and he was in pain.

But then the performance started, and he completely forgot about the pain until he was reminded of his earlier complaints, after the show.

“My body, I feel stronger,” he said. “My pain went away, and I say, when you see these performance putting all their energy into it, I think that energy goes out.”

Divine, a nurse, explained he meant it both figuratively and literally.

“I’m very spiritual, so yeah, actually, there’s a few performers that I could see that the light is coming out of them.  There was this guy that when he was dancing, you can see that the light was coming out of his hands,” he said. “Actually you can see light, coming out of. You can see a white light and an orange light. And I believe that those are healing lights.”

Antonio Divine at Shen Yun Performing Arts at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.'s Au-Rene Theatre, on Dec. 29, 2021. (Xinxin Teng/The Epoch Times)

Divine added that the physical relief he felt seeing the performance was not the biggest change Shen Yun brought about in him. He knew, somehow, that the spiritual refreshment obtained during the two hours of art would have a lasting impact on his life.

“There was actually a point where I got so emotional that it brought tears to my eyes,” he said. “This last dance, it was the combination of what divinity and divine actually means. If we all put our hearts and mind to bring peace to the world, we can do it.”

“I was looking at the show, especially at the end when the divine force arrives. And I felt—I have a few challenges in my life—and I just felt that from now on, after seeing the show that my life is going to improve,” he said.

“I feel energized, I feel like I’m ready for 2022, and I think we gonna beat this virus, because I think that if we put our energy and the energy that is coming out of the theater—we allow it to flow around us—we’re gonna beat it, and we’re gonna get better. But we all have to get into that same vibration, that same feeling,” he said. “Because if we put [out] bad energy, that’s what we get back. If you put [out] good energy, you get good energy back.”

Divine said he felt the energy the Shen Yun artists put out, the divine force he experienced, was an energy of goodness, compassion, and forgiveness.

“It is for everyone, but some people choose to receive it and some people close themselves,” he said. “We have to open ourselves to receive. You know we all make mistakes in life, and it’s up to us to open ourselves to correct the mistakes. I think the divinity, or the divine, will forgive everyone, but we have to be open to receive that forgiveness.”

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. For more information, please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org