SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun ‘Bringing Light to a Dark Planet,’ Director Says

Apr 14, 2023

LONDON—Desmond Thompson, a company director, was greatly moved by Shen Yun Performing Arts upon his first experience.

“One, of course, can see the the effort, the the years of training—has gone into it—the artwork, the sets, the music, the musicians, and so on—but the most important thing was, it touched my soul,” he said at the Eventim Apollo on April 14.

“I saw in this dark world with so many insidious and dark and evil governments of various kinds and organizations. Here’s a light that touches, makes people more aware of their traditions and their culture,” he said.

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company and takes as its mission the revival of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.

“The world population needs this real good,” Mr. Thompson said. “It makes a big—it makes a difference. The performance may not be aware of it, but it made a lot of happy people tonight. And some of those happy people start to think their own music, their own traditions.”

Mr. Thompson said he'd looked around the theater and saw and heard many different people speaking different languages and thought perhaps they had also been inspired.

Shen Yun carried “a touch of the divine,” he said, and he wanted the artists to know that “you are the light. You are sure, sure of the light. You’re bringing light to a dark planet. And for me, sitting there, it really touched my soul.”

Mr. Thompson only wished his family members could make it, too; several of them were familiar with the Chinese culture or language, and he wanted to recommend Shen Yun to them. He himself had missed out on it for many years, and said there was only one seat left open by the time he got his ticket this year.

“[Shen Yun] is living art,” he said. “What the most important, several important things was, the story of Chinese ancient civilization that has come through, and their traditions and the culture.”

“It certainly must touch the spirit of mankind, because there’s light that’s been shown in this dark world,” he said. “ Shen Yun is the light—a light springing forth.”

It was difficult to, with words, “get across of the experience to realize the beauty of it,” he said. “But the internal beauty of the divine ... comes out.”

“I’m using human words of human language to try and explain something from another universe. It’s a little difficult. But the feeling is there, the feeling is there so that’s where it’s at.”

Reporting by NTD and Bao Yuan.

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