FORT WORTH, Texas—Joanne Stephens spends the majority of time giving care to her elderly mother in law, her grandson, and her special needs son.
Being a caregiver is all that’s on her mind, she said, so she hadn’t even noticed that her husband Glenn had hid tickets to Shen Yun Performing Arts as a gift in their bedroom---since December.
“It’s amazing. I’m going to save my money starting today, for next year. And I’m going to sit as close, if not closer. It brings tears because it’s so beautiful,” said Mrs. Stephens, who attended the March 15 performance with her husband Glenn at the Bass Performance Hall.
As she recounted the moving performance to a reporter after a performance, Mrs. Stephens welled up with emotion, talking through her tears to express how beautiful the performance really was to her.
“The costumes, the work that they go through. It just seems like they’re floating in the air, and it’s just relaxing,” Mrs. Stephens said. “It’s just amazing, there’s no words. It’s beautiful art. Just to see these young people bring [this] entertainment for us, it’s beautiful.”
Mr. Stephens said the best way to sum up the performance was “awesome.” Through color and dance, he felt he saw the progression of China through 5,000 years, and it was a wonderful story.
The performance starts with the Chinese creation myths. Then what unfolds are stories and scenes of regions across China and dynasties through the ages, up to the modern history of the demise of the traditional Chinese culture with the onset of communism, and Shen Yun’s hope for a revival of the authentic traditional culture.
“It was a range of emotion, from laughing, heartbreak, crying, feeling the persecution that they felt, seeing how things happened, that world, and it was ... marvelous just watching it unfold,” Mr. Stephens said.
Without a word, the artists had expressed an entire culture she had known nothing about, Mrs. Stephens added. She said she was already making plans to bring her family next year.
“If God willing, I'll be here next year,” she said.
Reporting by Amy Hu and Catherine Yang
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.
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.
