SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Nurse and Dancer Moved to Tears by Shen Yun

Mar 29, 2026

3/29/2026Updated: 3/30/2026

MINNEAPOLIS—Cate Kautz and Kiera Kautz, a dancer, saw Shen Yun Performing Arts on March 29 at the Orpheum Theatre.

“The color, the creativity—it was amazing. We’ve been wanting to see it for several years. First time. Dream come true,” said Cate, a nurse practitioner.

Shen Yun, based in New York, is on a mission to present “China before communism,” and revive people’s connection with 5,000 years of Chinese civilization and culture.

Cate expressed that in Shen Yun, she saw “perseverance and preservation. Preserving culture and history—having respect and admiration for all the different kinds of like dance and movement and culture.”

Shen Yun’s artists are trained in classical Chinese dance, one of the most comprehensive dance systems in the world.

“It was great—the color and the formations—I was very in awe. I’m a dancer as well. Watching another style of dance—I almost cried four times. It was so beautiful,” Cate said.

Shen Yun’s website states that classical Chinese dance training includes three main components—technical skill, form, and bearing, which is one of the many ways that classical Chinese dance is different from ballet.

“The formations were beautiful and smooth, and all the dancers were just so on every queue and every adjustment and it was beautiful. The athleticism was crazy amazing,” Cate said.

One dance that really took her breath away was the Water Sleeves.

“It was just breathtaking. It was so beautiful. I love that one. With dance, it was the water,” Cate said.

Shen Yun uses Classical Chinese dance to tell stories from China’s five millennia. Its dance stories also portray the modern true story of Falun Dafa practitioners being persecuted for their faith in China. Falun Dafa is a peaceful practice that teaches the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.

“The one with the young boy and his mother—the Falun Dafa one. It’s very powerful,” observed Cate.

She shared that as a nurse, she is aware of the forced organ harvesting in China. But to see it confirmed through dance was striking.

“It moved me because I’m in medicine, so when I heard about the forced organ harvesting, it really struck me. It affected me deeply. It’s not what medicine is supposed to be. And just seeing the show about it, it really hit my heart— I teared up,” said Cate.

Reporting by Yeawen Hung and Maria Han.

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