Hsieh found it more than lived up to the hype.
“I feel like there is an electric current running through my body,” Hsieh said on Sept. 25, at the Chung Shan Hall in Taichung City, Taiwan, during a sold-out concert.
To say Hsieh was inspired would be an understatement; Hsieh felt the experience was closer to enlightenment.
“It’s like every cell of my being is responding to the music,” Hsieh said.
He said, joyously, that it was like parts of his mind that were previously not accessed had opened up to him, and artistic visions hidden in his subconsciousness had been unlocked.
“I'll be leaving with a lot of inspiration to take back with me,” he said.
SYSO was formed due to popular demand. The music of Shen Yun Performing Arts, the premier classical Chinese dance company formed in 2006, is all original and new every year. The dance company travels the globe every season with a live orchestra that draws massive attention.
Healed Through Music
Sitting in that auditorium, Hsieh said he felt fulfillment both emotionally and spiritually.“It’s the feeling of being fully rejuvenated. It really is a feeling of being healed in my heart, through music,” Hsieh said.
Shen Yun means something like “the beauty of divine beings dancing,” and traditional Chinese culture is known to be a divinely inspired one. Hsieh certainly felt that touch of the divine present in the music, which was a program of classical favorites as well as the original works in the unique style Shen Yun is known for.
“They are divinely in sync, able to communicate without a single word,” Hsieh said.
Like Water
Hsieh compared the music to water, with its healing effects, its power, and omnipresence. In traditional Chinese culture, water symbolizes the all-encompassing wisdom of the natural world. Laozi said, “The highest excellence is like that of water”—striving for the benefit of all things without need of recognition or reward.Hsieh said he came to observe how the East and West could be blended together to complement each other, and from the performance he understood that and so much more.
Two Traditions
SYSO made stops in 10 cities in Taiwan during its tour through Asia, and on Sept. 27 in Chiayi county dazzled a chorus director and musician with its musical excellence.A former pipa player, Wang paid keen attention to the orchestra’s instrumentation.
Ancient instruments like the pipa, a four-stringed upright lute, and the 4,000-year-old erhu, a two-stringed bowed instrument, take center stage amid a classical Western symphony. But the two traditions on stage don’t clash.
“I was impressed by how the Western flute was able to express the feeling and mood like a Chinese flute,” Wang said. The flute as we know it is a metal instrument, not wooden, but from one composition to another it adapted to the character of the tune. “I was greatly shocked.”
“Today I heard the harp playing with the pipa, both plucked instruments, and the harmony was simply marvelous,” Wang said.
“These are excellently trained musicians; to be able to hear them today, I am very honored and very moved.”