SAN JOSE, Calif.—An entrepreneur couple, Tom Gay and his wife Yvonne, found Shen Yun Performing Arts very well synchronized and spectacular.

“It’s very good. I’m impressed by the skill of the dancers, the synchronization, and the integration of the background into the show,” Mr. Gay said. “It is a very good way to do things.”

Yvonne found it “absolutely spectacular.”

They attended Shen Yun’s Sunday matinee show at San Jose Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 4.

Mr. Gay was impressed with Shen Yun’s live orchestra and its original melodies.

“I like the way it integrates some Western sounds along with the Chinese sounds, so it makes it very interesting. It fits in really well,” Mr. Gay said.

“When the drum groups were out there, the synchronization was spectacular; I really liked the way they did that. They kept the choreography so lively, and yet they also kept the drum music in synch,” he added.

Classical Chinese dance is rooted in 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. The Shen Yun’s website says that Classical Chinese dance is an art form built upon a deep foundation of traditional aesthetics, and it has rich expressive power that brings out the inner meaning of thoughts and feelings, reflecting the peculiarities of human nature, and the standard for human conduct.

Yvonne thoroughly enjoyed the traditional Chinese dance and was impressed by the performers’ abilities. “If I could do something like that, I would get up every morning and do it,” she said cheerfully.

“Very elegant, very feminine, but with a strong conviction of telling their piece, their story—just beautifully done, beautifully done.”

She appreciated the way the stories were depicted via traditional Chinese dance and music, and the way the artists portrayed their roles and emotions to reflect the inner message of the story.

Expressing how she enjoyed the transformation of a character, she said, “They portrayed it very well. I got the message. I loved that they were able to conform him into more of a peaceful way of life, instead of keeping him the bad guy. They portrayed it beautifully, absolutely.”

Mr. Gay said that Shen Yun’s dance and performances reflect an element of the divine, and Yvonne, too, felt the calmness and divineness of the meditative art depicted in the stories.

Yvonne said she was not aware of traditional Chinese culture and said that Shen Yun brought alive the “feel of what the culture is” with its performances based on stories of the ancient era to those of the present time.

“The colors, the elegance, the storytelling, the learning of the history, a lot of things I did not know, which [the performance] brings to the forefront in a most beautiful, positive way.”

The Chinese Communist Party has banned Shen Yun, so the company is limited to performances outside China—preventing mainland Chinese from seeing the spectacular display of their own traditional culture via the performing arts.

Yvonne said that it is unfortunate that even in today’s free world, Shen Yun is not able to perform in China, but she appreciated the positive approach of the performance to spread the message across the globe.

“It is interesting to see how these people are overcoming that [suppression] and trying to bring the message out,” she said.

“Hopefully one day the world will come together and they can dance this at home,” she said.

Reporting by Alex Ma and Arshdeep Sarao.

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org

The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.