MILWAUKEE—Bill Frey and his wife, Cindy Tiffany-Frey, found Shen Yun Performing Arts World Company’s 5,000 year journey through civilization using dance, music, and song to be very beautiful and interesting.

“A performance by Shen Yun is a presentation of traditional Chinese culture as it once was: a study in grace, wisdom, and the virtues distilled from the five millennia of Chinese civilization,” states the company’s website. It is Shen Yun’s mission to revitalize this lost culture.

“It was very interesting. I have never seen a show like this before,” said Mr. Frey, owner and commercial loan office of Bellwether Funding. “I thought the dancers were very talented, and it’s really a beautiful display.”

Mr. Frey was also impressed with “just how powerful the dancers were, as far as for the acrobatics they were able to do. And, they made it look so easy.”

Acrobatics as we know it today, grew out of classical Chinese dance. Classical Chinese dance is its own independent dance system with leaps, flips, spins and other difficult tumbling techniques, as explained on the company’s website.

“It was excellently beautiful!” said Ms. Tiffany-Frey, a middle school languages arts teacher for children with emotional and behavioral disabilities.

Traveling with the dancers is the Shen Yun Performing Arts World Company Orchestra which has a unique sound achieved by combining both traditional Western and Eastern instruments.

Mr. Frey said, “The orchestra was wonderful. They did a great job.”

He sums up his experience by saying: “It was just amazing to see the skill [of the performers], and the performance was really good. … It was very entertaining.”

What touched the couple was the fact that Shen Yun cannot be seen in the country of its origin, China, due to its atheism. Shen Yun is New York-based, thus it can freely express the true spiritual nature of traditional Chinese culture elsewhere around the world.

Out of the some 20 mini-performances of dance and vocal soloist, several were of the current history of China, and the persecution of the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa.

“It was kind of sad that they can’t perform their religious beliefs in China, but ... I thought it was interesting,” said Mr. Frey, and his wife agreed.

“I think it was extremely sad that this beautiful, beautiful dance can never be shown in China. And, that’s very sad, because it’s a culture that’s going to be lost otherwise. But it was beautiful.”

The values expressed by traditional Chinese culture, Ms. Tiffany-Frey believed, are applicable to today. Specifically, she saw harmony, peace, love, and tolerance in the performance.

“And being tolerant ... makes sense“ she said ”because in China they are not tolerant of this right now, of their own people, so it makes sense.”

Reporting by Cara Ye and Cat Rooney

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.