Richard Joel and his wife Esther Joel watched Shen Yun New York’s first performance at The David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. He praised the performance’s inspiring music, with the symphony orchestra, singing performances and production level being “extraordinary”. He said: “The performance is exquisite and mysterious, and it is extremely beautiful, bringing a wonderful experience to many different senses of the human body.”
For example, he said that during the whole process of watching the performance, he experienced “tangible” energy, and everything on the stage of the performance was “colorful and warm, making me feel like flying in the sky”.
He said that as a religious Jew, the universal values advocated in the show resonated in his heart. “The most important thing is the universal values that the show promotes, such as self-discipline, reverence and faith in the founder, and the need to restore important values,” he said.
He explained that the values he learned from the performance include: respecting human dignity, not sinking with the trend of the society, but trying to lead the society to recover, etc. “The show clearly demonstrated these values in a very beautiful way,” he said.
He believes that in today’s society where all kinds of traditional cultures and ideas have been attacked, the emergence of traditional Chinese culture that is revived by Shen Yun performances is very important. “Our world needs a very strong cultural heritage, a very strong value, and this (the show) is what our world needs,” he said.
Esther, a retired psychologist, also loves Shen Yun performances, especially “the energy, color, and talent of the artists in the performances.” And most importantly, “the show has given humanity a very beautiful message of hope,” she said.