ROSEMONT, Ill.—Father and daughter pair Kenneth Jakubowski and Eva attended Shen Yun Performing Arts North American Company’s matinee performance on Feb. 16, and before they had left the theater, they had already decided it would become an annual tradition.

“It was wonderful. It’s a great family event. I would recommend this to anybody. It was really spectacular,” said Jakubowski after seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Rosemont Theatre.

Jakubowski is president of Sirius Enterprises, Inc. and a regular on-air contributor to WGN radio (720 AM) for The Patti Vasquez Show. Also an author, he is currently working on a non-fiction true crime novel.

“It’s fantastic. It was wonderful. It was amazing,” Mr Jakubowski said of the dancers. “It was a spectacular event. We really enjoyed it. It was really wonderful that we came. We’re gonna come next year.”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company.

Through story-based dance, a Shen Yun program is divided into 20 or so vignettes that recount periods from China’s 5,000 year history, its mythology, and its folklore from ancient times to the present day in its endeavor to revitalize traditional Chinese culture.

According to its website, each program is also accompanied by a unique orchestra and animated backdrops.

“The story line was amazing. I couldn’t figure out how they kept jumping back into the artwork. It was really done exceptionally well,” Jakubowski said.

Jakubowski said “The music was excellent… very relaxing. The violins were cool.” He explained that his 9-year-old daughter, Eva, who had accompanied him today to the performance, is an aspiring violin player.

“It was calm and relaxing,” she said of the music.

“We learned a lot about the culture,” Jakubowski added, saying Shen Yun’s presentation of Chinese culture was excellent. “They did an excellent job. It was very well done and very cohesive.”

Traditional Chinese culture is said to be divinely-inspired, and many segments of the performance show various aspects of this spirituality, traditional values and virtures, and the interaction between humans and heavenly beings.

“I thought it was excellent… it was a perfect performance,“ Jakubowski said. ”It was very good. It was warmly received by everybody. I thought it was excellent. The story that they chose was timely, topical, very thematic, very connected to today—very relevant.”