AUSTIN, Texas—Jesus Charriez, a military counselor, waited two years for Shen Yun Performing Arts to perform at the Long Center in Austin again. “We were waiting for two years to come to this show,” he said.
Formed in New York in 2006, Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. In recent years, it’s branded this mission with the tagline “China before communism.”
“I think it’s the passion on how they express their history. You can live it. You can feel it—I feel that way. So I think it’s really wonderful, beautiful. I love it. I love it.”Shen Yun’s message about salvation impressed Mr. Charriez, especially as sung by the tenor. “I like the message. Yeah, we block ourselves from salvation,” he said.
“The song that he was singing: it’s true that I don’t understand what he said, but when I was reading the [translation]— sometimes we are prisoners of our own thoughts. We become prisoners of ourselves, of our own actions.”
