SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Classical Pianist and Mother of 10 Relates to ‘Beautiful Ideas’ of Shen Yun

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Classical Pianist and Mother of 10 Relates to ‘Beautiful Ideas’ of Shen Yun
Wendy Park attends Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre, in Auckland, New Zealand, on April 22, 2023. NTD

AUCKLAND, New Zealand—Professional pianist Wendy Park was treated to Shen Yun Performing Arts by her husband for their wedding anniversary on April 22.

“I am just amazed,” she said from Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre, in Auckland. “I really had no idea that the music would be so beautiful. I am really attracted to the music of course.”
Living up to its reputation, the former finalist in the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition complimented Shen Yun’s live orchestra.
“I was thrilled with the orchestra, they’re excellent musicians. There was a trumpeter that played a part that was unbelievable. That is one very good trumpeter!” she said.
“Of course, the dancing is just exquisite. It is breath taking; I don’t even know how to describe it. I just sit back in awe and wonder that the human body can do what they were doing.

“It is just glorious; the whole thing was just beautiful,” Mrs. Park said.

Based in New York, Shen Yun’s mission is to remind people of the magnificence, extraordinary depth, and breadth of China’s 5,000 years of civilization—much of which has been forgotten or destroyed in modern times.

Each performance consists of about 20 short pieces that, when sewn together, transport the audience from ancient China and its myths and legends, quickly through China’s diversity of dynasties, ethnicities, and geographic regions, to the present day. Its stories tell of hope, sacrifice, courage, and the many other facets of the shared human experience.

‘We Were Divine’

Park said she has been playing the piano since the age of four. She studied at Brigham Young University in Utah and she performed and taught widely while having her ten children.

“I had wonderful training and I passed it on to my children. And it has been a joy in our family, a real joy. And now I have lots of grandchildren learning piano, which I am very happy about,” she said.

Having lived in New Zealand for three years, the American said she learned a lot about “China before communism” from Shen Yun.
“It also taught us Chinese culture because we really don’t know it. I don’t think that Americans have any idea [about] Chinese history or culture … so this was just so nice to see—the beautiful part of [the] culture, to see the dancing, the colours, the choreography, and to hear the beautiful ideas that resonate with Westerners.
“It feels very whole to us, I think: their beautiful ideas about life and existence … man, it was so wonderful.
“I liked the ideas: that we were divine and we came down from heaven. A lot of Westerners have that idea that we are divine, and we are originally from heaven, so that resonated.
“The other idea was said that the Creator would be returning, and we believe that too. We believe that our Creator would be returning, so there was a lot of ideas and truths that we just thought, ‘Yes, this is true.’

“We need to bring back the morals, we need to bring back God, we need to bring back faith, we need to bring back all this beauty that has been replaced with something that is not beautiful. The music [of Shen Yun] is beautiful, the colours were beautiful, the dancing is beautiful, and these ideas are beautiful. So we’re all floating home tonight,” Mrs. Park said with a smile.

In addition to the live orchestra, Shen Yun also showcases a number of virtuosos in its performance.

“The 2-string violin, erhu, that was terrific,” Park said of the soloist on the Chinese violin. “And the vocalists were beautiful; the soprano and the baritone. And the pianist was fabulous, so I just loved it.”

“My husband loved it so much, he said, ‘Well, we will have to come every year. If it is going to be different, we have got to come every year’,” Mrs. Park added.

“I said, ‘Yes, you are right, we do.’ We are not going to miss this again.”

Park thanks Shen Yun’s creative director, D.F., and all the performers.

“You are very brave,” she said. “Well done, thank you for making the world a better place. Thank you for restoring such a wonderful culture.”

Mrs. Park described watching Shen Yun as feeling “full of goodness.”

“You feel like I have seen good things for two hours, and I have been watching beautiful, good things, so you float out of the room.

“In fact, we sat there for quite a while and did not want to leave because there was such a beautiful feeling from the stage, from the performers, from the orchestra—fabulous.”

“I am going to recommend this show to everyone,” she said.

Reporting by NTD and Melanie Sun.
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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