ESCONDIDO, Calif.—Shen Yun Performing Arts lit up the stage at the California Center for the Arts on Wednesday, Feb. 26, impressing show-goers, including retired Navy Commander Walter Welsh.

“I felt like I was watching a performance of true art,” said Mr. Welsh. “I felt elated.”

Shen Yun draws on China’s 5,000 years of culture, bring to life stories and legends through Chinese dance and music.

The Shen Yun website describes a performance: “A Shen Yun performance features the world’s foremost classically trained dancers, a unique orchestra blending East and West, and dazzling animated backdrops—together creating one spectacular performance.”

“One thing I’m really impressed with is the emotional-type approach to their dancing and also I’m also impressed with their classical dancing,” said Mr. Welsh. “The uniform way they are able to do their dances as a group is extremely impressive.”

Each piece that makes up a Shen Yun performance, each lasting no more than 10 minutes, involves many dancers, all carefully choreographed to tell a story.

“I think it’s extraordinarily colorful and I like it,” said Mr. Welsh of the costumes in Shen Yun, which are different for each dance piece.

He also enjoyed how the dancers interact with the animated backdrop. “That was something I hadn’t expected to see—how … the screen become a part of the dancers as they came off the screen and became the live performers. I thought that was very neat.”

Mr. Welsh said he felt the show helped him to understand more about China’s culture.

“It’s a kind of culture we’re not used to seeing because we have different impressions of what Chinese culture is,” he said. “I think it will bring an understanding perhaps of a different side of the Chinese culture that we don’t often get an opportunity to see.”

China’s traditional culture has been suppressed over the last 60 years that the current regime has reigned. Until Shen Yun, most of what people abroad thought of as Chinese performances were not true traditional culture.

“I think it’s very impressive,” said Mr. Welsh. “Very different from what you may have been led to believe or what you’ve seen before.”

Reporting by Jane Yang and Ben Bendig

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

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.