Physician: Shen Yun is the 'Perfect Prescription for the Pandemic'

The pandemic has left many feeling hopeless, depressed, and closed off from the outside world, but some have found healing in an unexpected place.

“It’s the perfect prescription for the pandemic. Anything that ills us right now Shen Yun will take care of … After leaving here, I feel like everything’s going to be just fine,” said Dr. Lisa Miller.

Miller, who saw Shen Yun in October 2021, practices internal medicine and believes the work of a physician is similar to an art.

“Being a physician, I use my hands to get things done and take care of my patients, while these performers use their bodies, their gestures, their fingers, their toes … they used every part of their body to heal us. What they did tonight was a form of medicine. It was a perfect prescription for joy and pageantry and beauty and honor, and everything is just good and magical right now, and we need it.”

And she was not the only one; Nicole Zakheim, a documentary filmmaker, saw Shen Yun in San Fransico, California, in 2020.

"Leaving this performance, I feel extremely peaceful. I feel healed to an extent," she said.

State Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione watched Shen Yun in Philadelpia in 2020.

“It gave you hope. I’m telling you, they gave me hope,” she said.

Healing Power of Music
Music is an age-old therapy. In ancient China, music and medical theory were even more closely connected.

Chinese music is based on a pentatonic scale: five main notes, which correspond to the five elements—fire, earth, metal, water, and wood—and respectively, to the five major internal organs—heart, spleen, lungs, kidneys, and liver.

In ancient China, music was not only a form of entertainment, but also a means of spiritual elevation. Refining one’s character and seeking harmony with heaven were natural components of the artistic process.

Shen Yun’s composers and musicians are aware of this, both in theory and in practice.

The company’s artists seek to do the same, “reviving this tradition of self-refinement and cultivation in the arts.”

According to the Shen Yun website, the artists are all meditators and spiritual seekers who strive to live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

NTD has covered Shen Yun since its inception, as it believes the company’s mission is culturally historic. Year after year, audiences report the experience as a rejuvenating one, refreshing, and even healing for the body, mind, and spirit.

Audience: Shen Yun Has Rejuvenating Effects
In 2016, Dennis Langevin, a veteran, saw Shen Yun in Waterbury, Connecticut. “I’m retired military and I’m 100 percent disabled, so I spend a lot of time in pain. So while I’m sitting in the seats, all of a sudden I came to a realization—I wasn’t feeling any more pain!”

In 2016, Joan Morgan, founder of the Joan Morgan Private Foundation, saw Shen Yun in Florida with her mother.

"It left me with a very, very light feeling in my soul, and also gave me hope, which is very positive," she said. "We've been dealt with a lot of tragedy, death, and things that have been very dark. And here coming to the show tonight, the message was just absolutely positive and radiant. Such beauty that it just … it brought your heart to be happy."

The same year, Silvia Katzman, a business owner, saw Shen Yun with her husband in Los Angeles.

"But what I find more insightful was the message, because our son, our 21-year-old son just passed away last week. And the message told me that my son is in a better place. That was very meaningful to me. I’m leaving feeling better about my son’s death. ... It minimized the pain that I was going through."

In 2020, Marc Kramer, founder of the Private Investor Forum, saw Shen Yun in Philadelphia. He said it brought him peace.

“I find it almost like meditation that it’s very relaxing. My day-to-day is very stressful for the kind of work that I do, and I found that this was de-stressing my whole week."

Marketing manager Angelo Segretto saw the show in 2019, and he said it cleansed one from worries. "When you walk out, you feel like all the worries have left you."

“And I kid you not, I feel—I’m sincere and earnest when I say—that I walked out feeling like a weight lifted a little bit, and I want to explore it more,” added Zakheim.

NTD News, New York