MINNEAPOLIS—Shen Yun Performing Arts often opens to theater-wide gasps and delighted applause.
“The curtains lifted up, the fog kind of rolled out—just a very epic scene to start the show. I haven’t seen anything like it,” said Steven Jones, a CEO in digital marketing, at the Orpheum Theatre on the evening of Feb. 24. He attended the performance with his wife, Marrissa, and the energy of the artists uplifted the couple.
“It’s kind of fresh, and you can feel the energy through the colors,” Mr. Jones said. “Just the joy from all the dancing. That was pretty incredible.”
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company and has since 2006 toured the globe with an all-new
production each touring season.
“All the different dances bring a kind of a different energy, different emotion to them,” said Mr. Jones. “The vibrant colors are just exciting to see, the emotions, colors, and the energy of the dances ... [it’s] a good message, and I think fun to see—the energy that
the show brings out through colors and through dancing.”
A Shen Yun production includes over a dozen vignettes, including story-based dances, ethnic and folk dances, and classical Chinese
dance showing glimpses from the various dynastic courts and eras of
China’s 5,000 years of
history. Mr. Jones described how each piece gave a different effect, sometimes ones you wouldn’t expect.
“Exciting, but it also seemed serene and calm at the same time, very graceful,” he said. He felt a “kind of joy, also a feeling of calmness and excitement ... all the dancers have been very graceful.”
Mrs. Jones noted she was most moved by a story depicting a modern-day tragedy—not because the acts of the Chinese Communist Party depicted were shocking, but because of the positive way
Shen Yun told and ended the story.
“That’s the part that brought so much emotion,” she said.
Reporting by Sherry Dong.
