“My boyfriend got me tickets for Valentine’s Day,” said Desrosiers, who enjoyed the dancing the most out of the performance’s many theatrical components: the live orchestra, bel canto vocal soloists, digitally animated backdrops, couture costumes, and more. She and Earle took in New York-based Shen Yun at Philadelphia’s Merriam Theater.

Shen Yun’s beauty astounds many, but it’s the depth of meaning the performance holds, and the unique, divinely-inspired stories that touch people deeply and leave them with an unforgettable experience, according to audience members.

In Desrosiers’s case, it wasn’t only her own experience with Shen Yun that moved her. She felt a positive impact on the entire hall of theatergoers.

“I was most moved by the depth of the emotion of the audience in response to what they were seeing,” she said.

“I myself am Tibetan Buddhist, and I felt that [Shen Yun] really connected the audience with the morals and the compassion that Buddhists feel and that I’ve personally experienced in China amongst the people, not so much through the government, but at the heart of the people. That’s my experience and I felt that the dance elicited that,” she added.

In the roughly 20 short vignettes per performance, Shen Yun depicts scenes from heavenly realms, ancient China, and also from modern-day China—where today spiritual believers such as Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Dafa practitioners are severely persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.

“The spirituality that was brought forth, again, it really connected with basic wisdom and compassion,” Desrosiers said, “which is very old in China and within many teachings and Taoism and Buddhism and Confucianism and they communicated that throughout all the stories. They were very diverse and I appreciated that.”

Desrosiers said she will absolutely recommend Shen Yun to her friends and family.

Overall, he called his experience at Shen Yun very positive. “It was delightful.”

“I really liked the lantern dance, the water dance, and the Mongolian cowboy one,” he added.

Earle was impressed by the spiritual aspect of Shen Yun’s performance and the effect it had on him personally.

“Very beautiful. And it’s very impressive, the movements. Sometimes people look like they’re floating, the dancers look like they’re floating across the stage. So, very impressive,” he said.