Shen Yun Performing Arts concluded four performances at the Miller High Life Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, over the weekend. Audiences appreciated Shen Yun’s revival of traditional Chinese culture through story-based classical Chinese dance.
Bruce Shapiro enjoyed the performance with his wife Michelle. “I loved it. It was very nice, very informative, and educational,” he said.
As a math professor at Illinois’s Rock Valley College, he said the stories spanning 5,000 years of Chinese civilization were educational. “I like the fact that they had some different cultures and the different cultural dances and showed some of the history and some of their beliefs. It was very nice.”
Shen Yun brought to life China’s divinely inspired culture through stories of the Creator and his salvation of humankind.
Mike Hintz, CEO of import and export company Classic Cargo International, said the divine message moved him: “Inspired, rejuvenated. There was a wonderful message that I really thought came home middle to the end, and it was moving. There was a creation message in there and a message of salvation—God reaching out to redeem his lost people.”
Mr. Shapiro said the Chinese belief of reincarnation resonated with him: “The overall spiritual theme of the fact that we lived before this earth, and the fact that mercy and kindness are rewarded as we leave this earth and go to the next world—I think that’s universal, and I think this performance portrayed that. That was wonderful.”
Shen Yun’s portrayal of Chinese people holding steadfast to their faith amid persecution by the Chinese communist regime moved Mr. Shapiro’s wife, Michelle.
“Truly touching. It touches my soul. I can tell the people who put the show on are trying to get the rest of the world to understand that there is a spiritual part of China that is being trampled down. But that is still there, and they want it to be known,” Mrs. Shapiro said.
Shen Yun’s mission is to revive China’s 5,000 years of ancient civilization that has nearly been destroyed by the Chinese communist regime starting 80 years ago.
Noelle Little, retired military musician from the U.S. Air Force with 26 years of service, appreciated Shen Yun’s efforts to share the lost culture in the United States. She said: “It’s a lost art. And I’m so glad that there are people in America that are really keeping it going and keeping it alive and bringing it to communities like this to share with everybody because I think it’s so important. I think heritage of every ethnicity, every culture is really important to hold on to that.”
Brian Koester, a sales specialist with Gap Medical, hoped that traditional Chinese culture will carry forward for others to learn from. “Hopeful that the Chinese culture will not be subsumed by tyranny, that it will grow again because there’s so much to learn from it, there’s so much to gain from that. And I’d like China to be open again someday because I don’t know how comfortable I would feel going there right now.”
NTD News, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
