SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

CFO Applauds Shen Yun’s Soprano and Her Wonderful Message

Mar 30, 2026

3/30/2026Updated: 3/30/2026

NEW YORK CITY—Dean and Melinda Maines enjoyed Shen Yun Performing Arts at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater on March 29.

Mr. Maines, CFO of an investment firm, said, “I think the choreography has been amazing. The dancers have been fantastic. The storytelling has been really good from start to finish.”

Mrs. Maines enjoyed the ladies’ Mongolian ethnic dance and the ‘Water Sleeves’ dance, as well as Shen Yun’s interactive digital backdrop. Shen Yun features a patented digital backdrop that interacts with the performers as they seemingly jump in and out of a fantasy landscape.

“I love the way that they pull them back down, in, and they pull them back out. I think it was just beautiful. Great choreography,” she said.

“We’ve been to a couple of shows like this, but this has been amazing, being able to see the interaction of the orchestra with how it works well with the dancers. Amazing.”

Shen Yun features singers who sing in Chinese as the lyrics are projected in English on the backscreen.

“The soprano—very beautiful. Of course, we couldn’t understand what she was speaking about, but there were words on the back so we could read along with it, but it was great. Very well done,” Mr. Maines said.

“So much emotion,” Mrs. Maines said.

They were moved by the message conveyed in the song. “That’s a good one,” Mr. Maines said. “I’m not necessarily a religious person, but I understand the religious undertones to it. It’s an amazing story from start to finish of how it all comes down and how [the song] brings it to the present day.”

Mrs. Maines said, “The message was beautiful. I think that when she sang about it, you didn’t even have to know what the words were because you can understand from the way that she was singing it, the feeling that she had about it. It was very intense.”

Shen Yun’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of traditional culture from “China before communism.” Mr. Maines considered that this would be what China would be like if the Communist Party were gone. “It could be it. It could be it.”

The Maines said they would heartily recommend Shen Yun to others: “Come see it. It’s incredible. The dancing, the orchestra is beautiful,” Mr. Maines said.

“I think that even if you don’t know that much about the Chinese culture, this is a great way to get an introduction to it,” Mrs. Maines said.

Reporting by Frank Liang and Yvonne Marcotte.

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