SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun’s ‘China Before Communism’ Is a Very Powerful Message, Says Phoenix Audience

Mar 09, 2026

3/9/2026Updated: 3/9/2026

PHOENIX—Based in New York, Shen Yun Performing Arts aims to revive China’s 5,000 years of traditional culture—its values, culture, and rich history. This year, the company is celebrating its 20th anniversary of sharing the beauty of “China Before Communism” with the world.

That’s exactly what the audience experienced at Phoenix’s Symphony Hall on March 8.

Jim Taylor, a senior engineer, and his wife, Susan, attended for the first time.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Mr. Taylor said. “It’s beautiful, colorful, entertaining. … It’s just a lot of fun.”

Much of the performance’s color came from the costumes, which Mrs. Taylor described as “absolutely gorgeous.”

The couple saw nearly 20 vignettes in the 2-hour performance, covering the breadth of China’s different ethnicities and its 5,000 years of history, from ancient to current times—all brought to life through story-based dance.

As expressive as classical Chinese dance is—from the high drama in battle scenes to the subtlety of parting lovers—its most arresting feature is its technical “leaps, flips and spins” that build to thrilling climaxes.

“They are all extremely talented,” Mrs. Taylor said. “The flips and the dance moves and [aerial moves] involved are just awe-inspiring to watch … It’s very, very good.”

“I’m just literally awestruck at the beauty of it. It takes me back. Just wow. It’s extremely powerful. The message is very powerful,” she said of the tagline: “China before communism.”

“It’s extremely freeing to see what [China] once was and to know the history that they’ve gone through and to come back around to—this show is just fantastic.”

Shen Yun was founded by artists who fled China for the freedom of the United States. They would not have been able to create a Shen Yun performance in China. In fact, as the pair of emcees who introduce each dance explained, Shen Yun cannot be seen in mainland China today, although it freely tours Taiwan.

Mr. Taylor said, “It’s a shame they can’t perform that in China. It just shows how repressive the communist regime really is. But it’s important that the rest of the world gets to see and understand what’s been taken away.”

Also attending the performance was Brad Williams, a civil engineer, who thought the performance was wonderful as well.

“It’s good to see,” he said. Despite “the oppressions through 1949 and the communists, and seeing how they’re still very proud of [their] religion, I like that.”

The company showcases China’s traditional, semi-divine culture, and thus, many of the dances include celestial maidens, immortals, and deities, such as Buddhas and Daos.

The communist People’s Republic of China was formally proclaimed in 1949. In the 1960s, it began a brutal campaign called the Cultural Revolution to dismantle the spiritual basis of China’s millennia of culture.

Mr. Williams felt Shen Yun did a very good job displaying the spiritual core of pre-communist China: “the beauty, the love, the caring.”

“Spirituality is very important,” he said. “Any religion around the world … I think the spirituality is very important.”

He hopes Shen Yun continues to have a big impact on the world. We may then see “what we see today in China maybe isn’t the way it was, you know, for hundreds and thousands of years prior to that.”

His takeaway was that “hopefully, that comes back” to China.

Reporting by Lily Yu and Sharon Kilarski.

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