ROSEMONT, Ill.—John Freson found something refreshing and inspiring in Shen Yun Performing Arts.
“I think the performance is beautiful. The costumes are wonderful, bright, and cheery. It’s really nice to learn the front story of each performance. With that, we really get to understand what the performance is about,” said Mr. Freson, a business owner, after seeing Shen Yun at the Rosemont Theatre on April 26. “It’s very interesting to find the difference of the culture too, of the heavenly realms and things that I had no idea. So I’m loving it immensely.”
Mr. Freson, a practitioner of martial arts who meditates, said that seeing the stories and depictions of heavenly realms actually bolstered his own Christian faith as well.
“As a Catholic or a Christian man, I’m finding that a lot of that religious history is similar to a heavenly God that we all look up to and that helps protect us and takes care of our earth. So I was surprised to see that that kind of connection or that equality of that type of connection for Christianity,” he said.
“It inspires me, and probably not as much as it inspires me, but gives me a little faith in what I believe, that there are other people out there that believe like I believe in spirituality and God and Creation, and that hopefully this show will bring that to more people in here that don’t have that understanding,” he said. “That would be wonderful if we all could have that kind of understanding, right?”
“I think the one with the pigman was cute, funny, romantic. So it had all the segments of romance and funniness and cuteness,” he said. “I learned from the pigman that the connection between heavenly realms and earthly realms, even though we’re so divided, there still is a chance for that connection. And I think with even people on this earth, right, we need to listen to our heavenly realms so we can have that connection to our gods, you know, that people, different people believe in, you know. So it’s lovely.”
“I think in our modern days, if these type of cultures or beliefs that I have would be shared more, I think the younger people would understand that culture and maybe get more spiritual and more understanding and enlightenment because we’re so lost in a busy world, you know, especially here in America. We’re so lost in a busy, busy world that no one stops to take time to understand culture, and belief, and spirituality. And I really think we need to,” he said.
