UNIVERSITY PARK, Ill.—College dean Felix Simpkins and his wife Kathy attended Shen Yun’s evening show at the Center for the Performing Arts at Governors State University on April 28 as an early Mother’s Day celebration.

Mrs. Simpkins had waited for years for the opportunity to see the production, and she couldn’t be more excited.

“Our children blessed me with this for Mother’s Day, and it was just amazing! From start to finish—it was just breathtaking,” she said.

In the decades following the regime’s violent takeover in 1949, Chinese traditional culture was forced to the brink of destruction.

Mr. Simpkins thought the whole show was magical, but what touched him most was Shen Yun’s portrayal of the divine.

“I really loved the spiritual part—just to see spirituality from a different context and a different vantage point,” he said.

To supply China’s transplant black market, the communist regime has murdered countless prisoners of conscience over the years for their organs. A vast number of these victims are Falun Gong practitioners.

“It moved me. It’s just not right; it spoke to the meanness of society that can occur. Yet, the divine revelation, justice, and spirituality presented at the end [of the dance] were great,” he said.

To meet popular demand, Shen Yun has grown since 2006 to include eight equally sized companies that tour the world simultaneously each year. In 2023, the company is slated to visit over 180 cities across five continents.

Mrs. Simpkins said her biggest takeaway from the show was “to live each day to the fullest.”

“People will try to silence you, and they will try to put their own [opinions] on you. So, it’s very important for you to stand up for what you believe in,” she expressed.

“[We] saw that from start to finish in the show. Regardless of what the consequences were—to live or to die— [they] stood up for what they believed in. I thought that was absolutely moving.”