SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

‘Your Music Has Soul’: Shen Yun Erhu Virtuoso Astounds Atlanta Theatergoers

Dec 27, 2024

ATLANTA—Vincent and Tiffany Vero attended Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time to celebrate Christmas, and it was more than they imagined.

“It was beyond. It was amazing. We didn’t know what to expect,” said Mrs. Vero, an art dealer, at the Atlanta Symphony Hall on Dec. 26.

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, known for reviving the once nearly lost, millennia-old art form.

Classical Chinese dance is a famously expressive art form with roots in opera and the imperial courts, and Shen Yun artists use it to tell stories spanning five millennia. That includes stories set in modern-day China, where the spiritual, traditional Chinese culture that Shen Yun seeks to revive is under attack by the Chinese communist regime.

Mrs. Vero said she was unfamiliar with parts of Chinese history and the situation today, and Shen Yun had communicated that beautifully to her.

“I didn’t realize the repression,” she said, describing one story-based dance set in the modern day, with a protagonist holding on to faith despite oppression. “It was beautifully done—and expressed without any words.”

Mr. Vero said he had been the one who decided on the show, not knowing what to expect either. But surprises came one after another during the performance.

For example, early on in the performance, the emcees introduced the dance “Water Sleeves.” The simple, understated name did not prepare Mr. Vero for what happened next.

“The discipline involved with that was, that just blew me away,” he said. Water sleeves are long, flowing sleeves that dancers train to be able to effortlessly move through the air precisely and synchronously, filling the stage with sudden bursts of color.

“It wasn’t the way they made it flow, the way that each one made the sleeves come back and drape,” he said, emphasizing the discipline it must have required to create the performance.

A longtime guitarist, Mr. Vero found another highlight in erhu virtuoso Andrea Li’s solo performance.

The erhu is an ancient Chinese instrument with just two strings, played with a bow, capable of producing a wide range of sounds.

“You don’t need six strings or whatever. If your music has soul, you can do it on two strings. Not so much one, two. You need yin-yang. You need balance,” he said. “You can, and she was phenomenal. Phenomenal.”

Outside of the solo performance, the erhu is a mainstay of Shen Yun’s orchestras, which incorporates ancient Chinese instruments into an otherwise classical orchestra. Accompanying the dancers, the unique ensemble performs original compositions featuring ancient Chinese melodies and the grandeur of the Western classical form.

Mr. Vero was impressed with the music and the orchestra’s perfection and said he would turn to his wife to remind her, “this is a live orchestra.”

“The music blew me away,” he said.

Reporting by Roland Ree 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.