GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—Amy Charles, editorial director for SereNdipity Media, was in attendance for Shen Yun Performing Arts at Grand Rapids’ DeVos Performance Hall on Feb. 11.

“It was very interesting,” she said, adding that though it was her first time seeing Shen Yun, “I loved that it was an array of the music and the vocals—the individual performers.”

Through music and dance, Shen Yun seeks to revive 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese culture, a culture nearly brought to extinction at the hands of the Communist regime.

Ms. Charles said that she appreciated the athleticism of the dancers, as well as what she described as the “martial arts aspect” of the entire production. “It was just a very, very interesting performance to view,” she said.

Shen Yun also features its own blend of Chinese sounds with the precision of Western orchestration. “The result—two great traditions producing one refreshing sound,” according to Shen Yun’s website.

“I liked that it was a combination of traditional and Western and the variety of instrumentation involved,” Ms. Charles said. “It was nice to have the mix of the solo pianist along with a full orchestra, so it was just a nice variety of what we got to see, and hear, and take in.”

Adding that everything about the performance was so new for her, Ms. Charles was also impressed by the breadth of Shen Yun’s ability to deliver audiences a unique perspective of history.

“It would be hard to sum it up briefly, but I would think [Shen Yun’s] introduction of it being 5,000 years of history is a pretty nice start,” she said. “That it really goes from before time until the present.”

With reporting by NTD Television and Michael Fitzgerald

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.