SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Solo ‘So Beautiful, I Couldn’t Even Believe It,’ Says Healthcare Executive

SHARE
Shen Yun Solo ‘So Beautiful, I Couldn’t Even Believe It,’ Says Healthcare Executive
The Lumleys enjoyed Shen Yun at the Orpheum Theatre, in Minneapolis, on Feb. 24, 2023. Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times

MINNEAPOLIS—Sheri Lumley, executive director of the Minnesota Hearing Healthcare Providers, had a special experience when the erhu virtuoso of Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company took to the stage at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis on Feb. 24.

“It made me, oh my goodness, I can’t even explain it. When she was playing that, I felt it from inside to the outside. It was so beautiful—I couldn’t even believe it. It was magical—I mean, it was magical. That was beautiful,” said Mrs. Lumley, who attended the performance with her family.

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s top classical Chinese dance company and boasts several unique features, including a patented animated backdrop and musical soloists like bel canto vocalists, and the erhu virtuoso who impressed Mrs. Lumley.
The erhu is an ancient Chinese instrument nearly 4,000 years old, and only has two strings. Despite that, the instrument is famous for its wide range of sounds, dynamics, and musical possibilities.
It felt, in a way, like I was—one with myself. It was like I was one with the music. The music and I were mingling.
Sheri Lumley
Mrs. Lumley said when she heard that music, “it felt like I was peaceful. It felt, in a way, like I was—one with myself. It was like I was one with the music. The music and I were mingling.”

The experience was beyond words for Mrs. Lumley, but it included happiness and a feeling of connection to something greater.

“It was definitely an energy that was flowing through me from the top to the bottom. It was through my heart, through everything. It was, when she played, it connected everything. All the energy everywhere, the good, the positive, the beautiful energy connected me and everything. So it was wonderful. I was very connected,” Mrs. Lumley said, adding that the soprano’s solo moved her deeply as well.

During the performance, the emcees explained that the ancient Chinese believed music could act as medicine, resonating with it physically, mentally, and spiritually with the listener. Mrs. Lumley felt that described her experience exactly.

“Yes, yes, and I did, and that’s what I felt with that music,” she said. “I felt it, I felt it resonating throughout me ... It felt like it went through me. Every piece of my body was like singing with it, was playing with it. It was like my body and the music—the energy within my body was one with the music.”

Mrs. Lumley felt that “oneness” and spirituality were the essence of Shen Yun’s performance.

She and her husband, Robert, a retired history teacher, both commented that they could feel the positive effect of Shen Yun’s efforts to revive the beauty and spirituality the communist regime has tried to destroy in China.
“It spoke to me, and it showed the horrors of things that are happening now that shouldn’t be happening,” said Mrs. Lumley.
“It showed the beauty that is within people, and that there are some in government that are not good people and they are destroying that beauty, they are destroying that energy within people, the resonance that music has, they’re destroying it. And it’s not being allowed to show, it’s not being allowed to shine, and I think when you don’t have that music, and you don’t have that within people, you don’t have that connection. And they’re taking that connection away.”
A Shen Yun production includes over a dozen vignettes, showing scenes from China’s 5,000 years to the present day. The company’s mission is to show the beauty and goodness of China’s divinely inspired civilization, whose culture lives on in people even in China today, though they are persecuted for having faith.
Mrs. Lumley felt that spirit and culture also lived on through Shen Yun.

“They showed that these are the people, this is what we are, this is our energy, this is our being, this is who we are, and this is what the government has taken. It doesn’t allow this energy to be, and it’s taken from us, it’s destroyed, and it’s still alive in people though, and that is what it showed, it’s still alive,” she said.

Mr. Lumley said the China of the past was very spiritual, unlike China under communist rule.

“More than that, everybody was created by one Creator, and we’re all one people, and we should be able to shine, and I saw that,” he said. “There’s so much more in the past of China than what is going on today. Today everybody’s just going through emotion, they’re not living.”

But, not all people have resigned themselves, Mr. Lumley added. “There’s a power beyond the government that the government can’t control. And that’s what this showed.”

“At the end, it was about God. You know, the Creator. It wasn’t about anything else—it was about that. It was about the divineness,” he said.

“That here is something greater than whatever governments can create. It is something greater. And no matter how you oppress people, in the end, we all got to answer to that divine master.”

Reporting by Sherry Dong.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
Related Topics
shen yun
SHARE