“It’s excellent. It’s at the highest level of performance art,” Kevin McCullough, a talk show host, said. “I think it’s a really excellent performance in every way. The orchestra, the dance, the sparkles on the costumes. Everything down to the smallest detail is really well done.”
“The costumes are beautiful. I like the mythology, the 5,000 years tradition, and I'll see it again. It’s really terrific,” Steve Prystowsky, a retired dermatologist said.
Jonathan Vadnos, a company vice president, said he thought the Shen Yun Orchestra was fantastic. “Having a live orchestra was something that I normally don’t get a chance to see in performances. So I thought it was beautiful.”
Hanna Deglin, a fashion designer, said, “They were amazing. They were beautiful. And the acrobatics and the movement, and I loved how the costume played into the dancing.”
Mr. McCullough said, “The vignettes in the second half are very funny, but they all drive home an important message. So I think the advancement of kindness and good, and defeating evil is something that we always have to be vigilant towards.”
“I love the idea of the divine human,” Jenni Crumptonross, a former dancer and the CEO of a nonprofit organization, said. “And the spiritual message of the show is so beautiful. I think it’s something that we really need to be reminded of now, in this moment in history.”
“The message that I have is to be more harmonious, and to treat each other kindly. That’s really what I got from it,” Jeffrey Clynes, a business owner, said.
Shen Yun also sheds light on the ongoing persecution of faith in modern China under the Chinese communist regime. By bringing these stories to the stage and reviving a culture the regime has worked to erase, the company currently cannot perform inside China.
“What I liked about it more than anything is that Shen Yun is advancing the truth about what speech is like in China,” Mr. McCullough said. “The fact that you continue to put on the show, and you continue to produce it, and take it in light of the threats against speech, in light of the threats by the regime against this message being out there, I think that—in and of itself—is one of the most important things the show does.”
Ms. Crumptonross said, “They’re incredible. They’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The level of talent and as well as just the inspirational spirit that you see in their bodies and their faces, it’s unparalleled.”
