MONTPELLIER, France—While attending Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Opéra Berlioz du Corum, Carole Sommer made a “truly magnificent discovery, carrying a very strong message of peace.”
Mrs. Sommer is a company director who runs a human resources and training consulting firm. She said she was “super touched” by the show. “I think we need it so much these days.
“I think it’s really timely. Impressive technology ... then grace and a lot of emotion.”
Mrs. Sommer was accompanied by a friend, Bruno Ameduri, a researcher at the CNRS, who had the impression of “traveling to different places, in different provinces of China” in seeing Shen Yun.
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, which, through music and dance, has a mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization—China before communism.
Mrs. Sommer considers Shen Yun’s artistic level to be “highly sophisticated.”
“It’s impressive! And whether it’s the women’s or the men’s side, it’s very graceful and you can imagine that hours and years of work have gone into it. It’s a very impressive level,” she said.
“It’s patented, but I'd love to know how the technique behind it is,” he said.
“Spirituality, yes!” enthusiastically added Mrs. Sommer, “the divine side, the fact that we are all, in fact, divine souls, it would be great if we could get back to that heart, that humanity, a little ... I’m not talking about religion, that really goes through spirituality for me.”
“Yes, interiority too, meditation,” added Mr. Ameduri. He said they saw in the performance meditation, and “a lot of compassion between people too.” The profundity of the themes had him considering “maybe we should see this show again,” as there was more to grasp and understand.
Mrs. Sommer was also very sensitive to the current persecution suffered by practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Dafa in contemporary China, as exposed in Shen Yun. Since 1999, practitioners of this meditation discipline based on the principles of truth, benevolence, and tolerance have been imprisoned and tortured to death by the Chinese communist regime. They are also the target of forced organ harvesting.
“I give my full support,” said Mrs. Sommer to the spiritual practitioners and Shen Yun. “I can’t do much, but I’m giving all my support to the Chinese people, who are still persecuted like other peoples. If this is a show that can help convey a message of peace and tell them that, in any case, we in France support them, our hearts go out to them!”
“They absolutely have to keep it going! It’s a great battle they’re fighting, because in a way, it’s a battle. If, in every country and in every city where they perform, we can be the bearers of this message and support, it’s essential that they continue, of course! Hoping that one day China will open its arms to them,“ she said. ”But that’s a hope.”
