Christopher Miller, a retired graphic designer, said, “I love the style of storytelling, the visuals, and the interaction and the acrobatics and the beautiful women with the long sleeves, and the water sleeves, I thought that was really beautiful.”
“You were really able to understand the storyline of each movement that they took, and the ladies’ legs and their extensions were something that was definitely a form of art that I believe people really need to come and see,” said Theresa Taylor, an event producer with Sequoia Productions.
“You feel like the story is being told graphically and very ethereally, and then it comes forward into the foreground, and you see it is acted out and in motion. It’s beautiful,” said Mr. Miller.
“But I didn’t really know what to expect in terms of the immersion into a whole culture that I wasn’t familiar with, and so that it even took me a few minutes to kind of settle in and realize, this is something really different. There’s a lot to be inspired by and to learn here. And so I was really taken with the colors and the music and the performance itself, the acrobatics. So yeah, it was great,” said John Finley, a philosophy professor from Thomas Aquinas College.
“That was amazing to see a presentation that was capable of taking you from 5,000 years of history all the way up into the present time and to show the traditions of China and the beauty of the culture,” said Mr. Finley.
Ms. Taylor said, “I think by experiencing this today and seeing that there’s so much that we can learn from one another in terms of other cultures and the Chinese culture and American cultures and I believe that by experiencing something like this, you really have an insight of tradition that sometimes I think gets lost in history books and in just our everyday culture going around throughout life, we forget about what brought us here.”
“The dance, the music, the feeling that’s there, the sense of the importance of the older stories, that’s the kind of thing that creates a culture. And just to have people like myself and these thousands of other people who are watching it, to have them be made aware of this reality, I don’t see how that couldn’t be inspiring to many people. I think it’s a wonderful thing,” said Mr. Finley.
Larisa Grib, a photographer, said, “It doesn’t matter that we live in these days, but we [are] all connected to the Divine, to the spiritual stuff. It’s nice, these days, connected to all religions, spiritual styles, [divinity]. It’s interesting.”
Every year, Shen Yun presents an all-new performance, with brand new dances, music, and backdrops.
“I feel so amazing. It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. All those costumes and decorations, music, everything is so wonderful,” said Leeza Atsal, a psychologist. “I wish them all the best, because they are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people performing very well.”
“We need peace. We need tranquility. We need brotherhood, fraternity, sisterhood. We need to get along together. And the last piece of peace and salvation, that’s the only way we can get it,” said Trisha Bear, a registered nurse. “Keep up the phenomenal work, and we’ll be coming back to see it again.”
