SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Gives You a Glimpse of God, Says Physician

Jan 29, 2024

MEMPHIS, Tenn.—Many years ago, Timothy Potter visited the Temple of Heaven in China. It was a long trek on a foggy day, and that arduous stair climb began to really feel like an ascent toward heaven. When he finally reached the top, contrary to all his medical school training, he felt God and perceived the existence of heaven. The experience left a deep impression on Dr. Potter, and he said seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts brought out those profound memories all over again.

“There is an energy behind truth and these principles,” he said at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts after seeing a matinee performance of Shen Yun on Jan. 27.

“I could sense that there is that the same God that I know through Christ was working in Chinese history as well. And now everything I’ve seen through Epoch Times, through NTD, through Shen Yun, to me, is that same message that we’re seeing maybe from different angles. We’re seeing the same thing: A personal loving God, Creator, who designed this universe, who designed all the beauty, who designed all the art, who put in us, and in the coordinator of Shen Yun, the ability to—like she said, make new music and art every year to redesign this thing every year.”

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.

In recent years, the Arts company has billed its shows as “China before communism,” a side of China most people today aren’t familiar with. Prior to the Chinese Communist Party seizing power in 1949, the ancient Chinese believed for thousands of years that their culture was divinely inspired. Civilization rested on the core value of harmony between heaven, earth, and humankind, and the five cardinal virtues.

This traditional culture is universal but runs counter to modern culture and messaging, Dr. Potter said. He commended Shen Yun artists‘ conviction and creativity.

“Just astounding and amazing,” he said. “And there is an energy behind truth and these principles.”

“I think they move your heart to bring you a message. And they’re not afraid to speak truth along with showing you the beautiful results of truth and to make you feel in your heart that it’s only truth that produces beauty, that we wouldn’t have beauty without truth,” he said.

“And when you take truth away, you really do get ugliness,” Dr. Potter added, pointing to the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of people of faith, as conveyed in one of the dance pieces.

He was moved by the challenge of modern ideas, like evolution and atheism, and the message that humankind was created by God.

“Of course, things change, the word evolution just means change, we know things change,” he said. “But this philosophical idea of a universe that made itself with no help, with no mind ... the signs are everywhere that we are designed, just like this music and dance was designed, that everything we see is designed from the farthest galaxies—to flowers—to us.”

“And I love that these guys are brave enough, in a country that has worshiped evolution like some sort of god, to come and challenge that right in everyone’s faces,” he said.

The performance opened with a dance telling the origin story of China, with the Creator descending from heaven to bestow upon earth civilization, and spans 5,000 years to modern-day tales of courage and faith in China today. Dr. Potter saw in these scenes contrast but also hope.

“When you take truth away, and then people are just competing for power, everything goes ugly,” he said. “And it’s right that they tell people the source of the beauty is really God, is really our creator.”

“The people up in front with the black costumes and the communist signs on their back, these guys have no energy. They have no joy. They only have violence. And the same things that are tearing China apart are trying to tear us apart,” he said. “All of the Marxism of these social movements in the last few years, trying to tear us apart, make us hate each other.”

In one of the story-based dances, Shen Yun depicted Falun Gong practitioners who follow the principles of truth, compassion, and forbearance, in modern-day China. These practitioners have faced persecution by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999, and the violence persists today.

Dr. Potter, a Christian, said he has read about the religions of China as well, which he previously believed had many core differences to Christianity. He said this introduction to Falun Gong shed new light on China’s traditional spiritual beliefs for him as well.

In one of the songs, Dr. Potter followed the translated lyrics on the backdrop and read the words “God’s ordeal.”

“Ordeal means suffering. What if God also suffers? What if he came and suffered with us in flesh? What if he actually came and suffered with us?” he said.

“If [Confucius] said to honor our ancestors, how much more should we honor the very first ancestor? The ancestor, not only of me and my daddy and my grandpa, but the ancestor of all of the stars, the ancestor of the whole universe. How can we not honor Him and thank Him?” he said. “And maybe, I hope, maybe Falun Dafa is reminding China of what they knew 5,000 years ago ... you must honor and thank the Creator.”

With reporting by Yawen Hung.

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