CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Ashleigh and Marvin Richardson attended Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Belk Theater at Blumenthal Performing Arts Center on March 3, and the couple were intrigued and inspired.

Mrs. Richardson appreciated the views from 5,000 years ago to today. “I think it was interesting, the different cultural aspects of the play. I really liked how they did the reference to, like, COVID-19 and the pandemic, and the new world. They made a reference to technology and how it’s kind of consuming a lot of people. So that was very interesting.”

Mr. Richardson agreed. “I really appreciate that, too. I really appreciate how they subtly introduced different concepts of how things are controlled, and how things are manipulated in other areas, and how things could be conveyed to us who live in a different type of reality.

“We live in a different type of society. And so, I really appreciate how the play actually conveyed things that were happening in a very palatable way for us to understand.”

“For me, I think everything is connected, whether it was the different times, but they were all connected. So, you can kind of see how it kind of flows. Like what Marvin said about the different realities. They were all kind of flowing and merging together.”

Mr. Richardson added, “I felt like there was a lot of liberty that was desired.

“And I felt like there were some things that may have been conveyed as injustices that were going on for different people at different stages. And I could see that in some sense. It was more so an advocation for liberty. And that was something that I realized from the show.”

“I believe the Creator is God. He created all of us and, you know, even though we go through different tragedies or disasters or whatever it is, He continues to give us hope, and He continues to be there for us in every situation.”

“Yes. I definitely agree,” Mr. Richardson said. “I definitely believe in the unified faith, unified hope, and unified ability to be able to come together and make things happen, and make things work, and have the belief in ourselves to push forward and make change.

“And so I definitely love the fact that they had that divine inspiration, and it allowed them to see that ‘I can stand up, and I can do this. I can make this change.’”

“You know, this is very scary, very hard. This may be something that’s going to be controversial for the reality that we live in right now. ‘I’m going to take a stand, and I’m going to do what we need to do to be able to progress.’ And I really appreciate that.”