“It’s actually different every year, which is what I love about it. … It tells the story [of] 5,000 years of China and the people,” Lowenthal said.

“It was wonderful, … I wish I was back 5,000 years ago,” he said.

“Every year there’s more and more energy, which is nice. The audience is engaged—just hear everyone around us! They actually get engaged. It’s like you’re a part of it. We feel like we’re a part of their ... We feel like we’re back 5,000 years ago,” he said.

Lowenthal attended Shen Yun on Feb. 20, 2020, at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts with dancer, playwright, and painter Pario Max.

As a dancer and gymnast in her earlier years, Max, understands the daily discipline needed to perform at a professional level, to perform the number of dances that Shen Yun dancers do, and to perform “to the T” in exact unison with such large groups of dancers onstage. “It’s amazing,” she said.

“It is art in itself onstage, and it is just magical,” she said. “It is; it’s very magical.”

“My favorite was the sleeves dance,” she said. In the classical Chinese dance “Water Sleeves,” ladies toss out long silken sleeves and then effortlessly retrieve them.

“It was like flowers blooming; it was just a flow of energy,” Max said. “Every performance was a flow of energy, but that one especially, where they were letting go and drawing in. It was almost like everything was blooming.

“And the backdrops are amazing too, with the colors,” she said.

For Lowenthal, what was amazing was Shen Yun’s underlying message: love. “It’s all in the love of the heart, for the country, for the other people, and for the love of your life, as well as [for your] brothers.”