‘You Could See the Compassion’: Shen Yun Performing Arts Inspires Melbourne City Councilor
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Whitehorse City Councillor Prue Cutts attends Shen Yun at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in Australia on March 15, 2026. Jing Li/The Epoch Times
MELBOURNE, Australia—For two decades, the artists of Shen Yun Performing Arts have been delivering heartfelt messages through their dance pieces to theatergoers across the globe. This Sunday afternoon, Prue Cutts, a city councilor for Simpson Ward who was in the audience, was “amazed” by what she learned.
“I love history generally, and I just love looking at different histories around the world,“ she told The Epoch Times from the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. ”All the different folk areas as well as the ethnicities, it’s quite extraordinary and quite diverse.”
The New York-based dance company features dozens of classical Chinese dancers in costumes inspired by China’s rich millennia-old culture. The company has traveled the world on a mission to revive that ancient culture, which was “almost lost” during the destructive Cultural Revolution under the communist regime. Shen Yun presents “China before communism,” where traditional morals like humility and kindness are celebrated.
“You could see the compassion, all of that, throughout the performances,” Cutts said. “It was amazing, but the talent of the performers was quite extraordinary.”
Banned from performing in mainland China, Shen Yun trains in upstate New York. Composed of practitioners of the spiritual practice Falun Dafa, which is persecuted in China, Shen Yun is motivated to share that which is also persecuted in their homeland—spirituality. China’s vast history is steeped in Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian beliefs that have been attacked under communism.
“To me, it was like the divine had sent these beautiful people down to dance and show what life is like when you go up into heaven,“ Cheryl Graham, who teaches meditation, said from the theatre on Sunday. ”If people work out that the divine’s in everybody, and that we can experience all of those things that they offer, then the world would be a different world and a better place.”
Cheryl Graham (left) attends Shen Yun Performing Arts with one of her meditation students at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in Australia on March 15, 2026. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times
Scenes include the tale of creation, a spectacular episode in heaven where the Creator leads an entourage of divine beings down to Earth to play out China’s 5,000-year history. Ethnic dances follow, including the Mongolian dance, as well as myths that feature the famed Monkey King, performing acrobatic feats onstage. Each tale teaches a lesson that feels fresh and relatable today.
“People are all full of goodness” was the message that Graham took from one of Shen Yun’s singers who sang in between dance segments. “We’re all one, we’re all here to look after each other.”
It’s also a revival of classical Chinese dance. The artists of Shen Yun specialize in the artform that goes back thousands of years.
“They’re just amazing, they’re so flexible, they can just bend and move and just make it flawless,” business owner Agnes Luczyk said. “They just make it look so easy to do that.”
Their movements weave a visual tapestry with Shen Yun’s state-of-the-art animated backdrop that transports the audience from misty mountains to ancient palaces. Dancers seem to fly offstage only to reappear in the clouds. All this flows seamlessly, supported by a full, live orchestra that blends Chinese and classical Western instruments.
“It’s just amazing that something like that can be put together in such a spectacular and colorful way, it’s just phenomenal,” Ms. Luczyk said. “Amazing, 100 out of 100.”
Reporting by Jing Li, Mike Deng, Terri Wu, and Michael Wing.
