SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Award-Winning Journalist Finds Shen Yun Transformative, Powerful, and Mesmerizing

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Award-Winning Journalist Finds Shen Yun Transformative, Powerful, and Mesmerizing
Peter Boisseau attended Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, in Toronto, on April 8, 2023. Dongyu Teng/The Epoch TImes

TORONTO, Canada—Journalist and creative writer Peter Boisseau watched Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on April 8.

“It’s lovely,” said Mr. Boisseau. “Really well done. Good presentation, [and the] colors are just spectacular. The dances, the athleticism, the culture, the art, the creativity—amazing.”

Based in New York, Shen Yun was founded in 2006 and is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. Now with eight equally sized companies touring the world simultaneously, Shen Yun’s mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture.
Mr. Boisseau, who hosts a podcast called Sounds Interesting, was particularly touched by the erhu solo. The erhu is a traditional Chinese instrument with only two strings but can express a wide range of emotions.
According to the Shen Yun website, people in ancient China believed that beautiful music had healing powers. Mr. Boisseau said that he resonated with this belief and shared that his own podcast was inspired by a personal experience that was connected to the healing qualities of music.
When asked what his experience watching Shen Yun was like, Mr. Boisseau said, “It was transformative. It was powerful. It was so mesmerizing—the colors, the movement, the athleticism, just the deep the richness of everything [they] did.”

“You had that sense that a lot of it was informed from ancient cultures and traditions that you had to be very respectful of, and [the performance] had a very good energy to it. It was something where you could really appreciate the creativity that was being shared with you. It’s really, really, really nice.”

Mr. Boisseau added that what he was mesmerized by was Shen Yun’s artistry, including the color combination, sounds, movements, and Shen Yun’s patented animated backdrop. He was also appreciative of the performance’s creativity.
“I think when you see something that’s genuinely creative and unique, usually there’s a tendency to kind of respond to it in the same way … It gives you a special kind of feeling, a special kind of energy,” said Mr. Boisseau. “It’s a very positive energy, and it’s something to be shared. [It’s] something universal that can be experienced by all, and it’s a very nice message, all of us sharing that together.”
Shen Yun also aims to give its audiences a glimpse of pre-communist China. Shen Yun’s website states that traditional Chinese culture was deeply rooted in the spiritual teachings of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, all of which were abolished when the atheist communist regime took power. Shen Yun’s performance depicts some of the lost spiritual elements of Chinese culture.
Mr. Boisseau said he saw a spiritual message in Shen Yun, which he identified as hope.

“I think [it’s] the message of hope,” he said. “Sometimes it seems kind of hopeless … [but] more and more people’s awareness [are] building. There’s all this beautiful culture that, right now, is overshadowed by a kind of temporary thing, a temporary empire or regime, [which] will pass like all these other ones did—and the beauty and the artistry of the culture and the history will be there—preserved.”

Mr. Boisseau added that he believed the fall of communism in China depended on the Chinese people themselves.

“There’s a hunger for freedom in China, and it’s just so brutally suppressed,” he said. “What we think negative, the human will overcome, [though] the only way it’s going to happen is if the Chinese people themselves managed to overcome their oppressors, the communists.”

Lastly, Mr. Boisseau wished the performers “all the best in the world,” and added that he “[hoped] to see them when they’re back.”

Reporting by NTD, Dongyu Teng, and Wandi Zhu

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

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