SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Shows That Pre-Communist China ‘Was a Much More Beautiful Place’

Jan 29, 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C.—United Airlines pilot Jamie Fontanella had never known about the Chinese belief in the heavenly creation of humankind before seeing Shen Yun. But there’s a hint of this belief—a belief in the divine nature of Chinese culture as well—in the very name of the company. “Shen Yun” means the beauty of divine beings dancing. That’s the glory of China’s long spiritual past that Shen Yun aims to capture onstage and bring to the world.

Mr. Fontanella saw New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts, the world’s top classical Chinese dance and music company, at the Kennedy Center on the evening of Jan. 28.

The very mission of the company is to present the culture before the rise of communism—the semi-divine nature of China’s culture.

As the company’s website states:

Today Shen Yun’s artists—dancers, musicians, choreographers, composers, and the entire team—follow this noble tradition. For them, this spiritual connection is motivation for striving to excel, is the heart behind each movement of the dancer and each note of the musician.

“Beautiful. I’ve been wanting to see this performance for a long time,” said Mr. Fontanella’s wife, Danielle, a speech pathologist. “It’s very inspirational, and it’s very hopeful.”

“My husband was just saying how much we enjoyed the narration so that we know exactly what the background is,” she said.

Before each short dance or musical performance, two emcees introduce and give context to the history, legends, or stories from classical literature that the audience is about to see.

“And it’s very timely,” Mrs. Fontanella said. “I mean, it goes back in time, but it talks about current events also in China.”

For decades, the communist regime has systematically tried to root out this culture and replace the traditional Chinese beliefs with its atheist culture of struggle.

One dance portraying this struggle in modern times particularly struck Mrs. Fontanella. A person of faith is killed by the Chinese Communist Party—but then goes to heaven. “And it was very hopeful that people will be reunited in the afterlife,” she said. “I thought it was beautifully portrayed.”

Mr. Fontanella said, “I appreciate the fact that the criticism of communism is not subtle. It was overt and clearly spelled out for us. … I’m too young to know China before communism, but it looks like it was a much more beautiful place.”

A Family That Can’t Get Enough of Shen Yun

Keith and Maria Hennek enjoyed Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center Opera House, on Jan. 28, 2023. (Weiyong Zhu/The Epoch Times)

The Henneks attended the same performance as the Fontanellas, but this was not their first acquaintance with Shen Yun.

“The reason we came the second time is because we loved it so much the first time. … We love the performances, we love the colors, the whole movement, the outfits they wear. It’s—just everything. The way they dance, it’s unbelievable,” Maria Hennek said.

The beauty of Shen Yun—its synchronous, fluid dance; the majesty of its music; the vivid, harmonious colors of its costumes—often keeps the audience spellbound.

The couple’s daughter loved the dance as well. “She would sit down on the edge of the chair the whole time. … She didn’t take her eyes off the dance. She does dance herself so this for her—she loves it,” Mrs. Hennek said.

Keith Hennek, a project manager for government work, remarked on the spirituality of the performance’s message.

During one segment of the performance, the Creator comes down from the heavens. This, Mr. Hennek said, made him feel “very wonderful. Absolutely, it gives you hope.”

“We don’t get enough of that in society today. It seems that people are strange—too far away from spirituality. And I think that is very good that they bring that culture back, both [into] the art and into entertainment.”

It seems that the only thing Shen Yun could do better is to perform more often: Mr. Hennek encourages Shen Yun to “Keep doing what you are doing. We love you. We would say we’d like to see you more often, and we hope that you continue to do this for many, many years.”

Reporting by Weiyong Zhu and Sharon Kilarski.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.