SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

‘It Was as If I Was in Heaven,’ Musician Says of Shen Yun

Jan 12, 2025

BERKELEY—Musician Ocean Naeim said he had always wanted to see Shen Yun Performing Arts since he came to America. In China, he had also suffered persecution at the hands of the Chinese communist regime and said he was supportive of Shen Yun’s mission to show audiences the authentic Chinese culture from before communism.

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization through music and dance. The traditional Chinese culture—from before the Chinese communist regime’s 75-year rule—was a divinely inspired one and deeply spiritual.

Shen Yun’s artists say they aim to follow the traditional values they seek to revive, and as practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong, live by the principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance.

But Falun Gong and traditional Chinese culture are targets the Chinese communist regime has said it intends to destroy. Shen Yun was, in fact, founded in 2006 by elite artists from around the world, including those who had faced religious persecution by the Chinese communist regime.

Mr. Naeim was thoroughly moved by Shen Yun’s depiction of traditional Chinese culture and its divinely inspired nature.

Mr. Naeim said he was most impressed with Shen Yun’s depiction of the Creator’s love for humanity and the values of truth, compassion, and forbearance through the arts.

“I really hope Shen Yun’s success will grow ever more ... and more and more people will come to see and understand this, and the true meaning of those three values,” he said in Chinese at Zellerbach Hall on Jan. 12.

A musician himself, Mr. Naeim said he also believed his talent was a gift from the Creator and hoped to, like Shen Yun, use it to express kindness and love.

“What I saw on stage—every performer, every musician, they were perfectly focused,” he said. “I think this state of mind comes from the Falun Gong they practice,” he added, referring to the spiritual discipline.

“They were capable of such expression,” Mr. Naeim said. He said he felt the artists were able to perfectly convey the profound meanings and artistic intention behind every music note or movement. “I even cried during the performance a little.”

“During the soprano’s solo and some of the dances, my emotions, my joy and tears, were uncontrollable,” he said.

“It was as if I was in heaven,” he said. “From the very moment the performance began, and the production went from 3D to real to 3D again, it was so immersive and exciting.”

Mr. Naeim said he thought what Shen Yun conveyed was “hope.”

“In three hours, through art, music, backdrops, they conveyed a very important message to all of these people,” he said. “Everyone I saw in the audience, all sorts of people, were so very focused.”

He felt the message he took from the performance was that humanity comes from the Creator, who wishes us to not do evil, but return to kindness.

Through kindness, individuals light up their communities, which then eventually could influence the world and wipe out the darkness, Mr. Naeim said, and Shen Yun showed a microcosm of that lit-up world in vivid color.

“We should consider truth, compassion, and forbearance and do our best to pass on that positive energy,” he said. “This performance really thoroughly moved me. I had looked into Falun Gong before ... which in China is subject to propaganda and smears. When I finally came to America, I came across it again, and Shen Yun, and finally understood what it really stood for.”

“These people have compassion in their hearts,” he said.

Mr. Naeim said he has been in America for eight years now, and regrets he had not been able to see Shen Yun earlier.

“I hope Shen Yun does even better and better and more and more people come to understand it,” he said.

Reporting by Lily Yu and Catherine Yang.

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