DALLAS—Jeff Comer, doctor and executive, is a leadership expert, having spent a career rescuing failing hospitals and now coaching and mentoring leaders on managing stress and preventing team burnout. As such, he knows a thing or two about inspiring others.

On the afternoon of Feb. 25, Dr. Comer was buoyed by the positive energy of Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Winspear Opera House.

“Wow—it’s just so great. The beauty. The passion of the dancers. The expressions. You can tell they enjoy and it’s a part of them, and just be able to have the ability to bring this story forward—the movement is really unique. Really very special. It has inspired me very much,” he said.

“My wife and I are adopting a little boy from China right now, and so to learn about that culture and that background is so important cause we want him to understand once we get him, so he can grow up with this cultural awareness. So it'd be very meaningful to us,” he said.

“I didn’t know there was so much meaning behind it. I thought it was more just a dance performance, but the discussion about the culture and the heritage and even the religious aspects was really surprising to me. I didn’t know that came with it, so we really enjoyed that,” Dr. Comer said.

“It was all so surprising to me,” he said. “It really stuck me when he mentioned that in China they can’t watch Shen Yun, and here we can, so we take so much for granted here that we can see things like that. Yet they can’t show this in the place where it originated—really struck a nerve inside of me.”