SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

‘It’s the First Time I’ve Ever Seen Anything Like This’: Shen Yun Theatergoer

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‘It’s the First Time I’ve Ever Seen Anything Like This’: Shen Yun Theatergoer
John Booy attended Shen Yun Performing Arts at the DeVos Performance Hall on Feb. 21 Nancy Ma/The Epoch TImes

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—Bill Satek, a general manager of a power plant, and his wife Kim Satek, an accountant, drove two hours to see Shen Yun Performing Arts at the DeVos Performance Hall on Feb. 21. The couple deemed the trip absolutely worth their time.

“It’s fabulous,” said Mr. Satek. “It’s really good. I love it. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this. I just love the energy and the choreography. It’s just phenomenal.”

Based in New York, Shen Yun was founded in 2006 and quickly became the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. Shen Yun’s mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture, and to present to its audiences the beauty of China before communism.
Mr. Satek was appreciative of China’s culture and history and said that he could see the dedication the performers had to their culture, which he found very moving.
“What I also like is that it’s the traditional Chinese dancing and expression from 5,000 years ago,” he said. “All these, it’s in their heart and soul. It’s in their being—you can see it’s from their past, their heritage, and they’re very proud of it.”
According to Shen Yun’s website, China was once known as “the Land of the Divine” and the ancient Chinese people believed that their culture was a gift from the Heavens. Shen Yun’s opening piece reflects this belief in the depiction of divine beings following the Creator to descend to the earth and establish Chinese civilization.

Mr. Satek was delightfully surprised by this portrayal.

“I love it that they’re going to their traditional values and they’re going back to the Creator and that they come out of the sky,” he said. “It was just fabulous. I didn’t expect that.”

Also in the audience was John Booy, a school superintendent. Mr. Booy said that he “really enjoyed learning about more about the history and the culture.”

Mr. Booy praised Shen Yun’s costumes, music, and patented animated backdrop.
As an educator, Mr. Booy found the values presented in Shen Yun’s performance to be important for education.

“I think the themes of courage and truth—those kind of values, of course, are important for education. And I think just the universal nature of the reference to the Creator, which we all look to, and the Creator’s original purposes of creating Earth in terms of truth, and justice, and all of that. Those things just came through really well.”

“The message is very important,” said Mr. Booy. “The universalness of the message is really needed, and it’s really strong.”

Reporting by Nancy Ma and Wandi Zhu.

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

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