SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun: ‘You Really Feel Them in Your Heart’ Says Utah Mayor

Feb 26, 2023

SALT LAKE CITY—“We’ve waited several years to come and we wish we wouldn’t have waited now … it’s amazing,” said Heidi Franco, Mayor of Heber City in Wasatch County and a political science professor at the University of Utah.

Mrs. Franco and her husband Leno Franco, assistant financial director at Department of Technology Services, saw Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time on Feb. 25 at the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Theater in Salt Lake City.

You feel the excitement … and the majesty of the different dances and places and times.

— Heidi Franco

“The colors, the stories are amazing … you really feel them in your heart,” said Mrs. Franco. “You feel the excitement … and the majesty of the different dances and places and times.”

Based in New York, Shen Yun Performing Arts is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company. Along with folk dances and solo performances, the production depicts story-based dance pieces that tell tales from ancient times to the modern-day.

Shen Yun Performing Arts aims to revive China’s 5,000-year-old traditional culture. The company’s website says its performance this year demonstrates “China before communism.”

“I just love the [traditional] culture—love it—and you can see the dancers love it too,” she said. “And that’s what makes it so special.”

China was once known as “The Land of the Divine” and Shen Yun presents this culture by drawing upon the Middle Kingdom’s Buddhist and Daoist philosophies. In the past, artists looked to the divine for inspiration and cultivated virtue in order to create uplifting art. Today, Shen Yun’s artists follow in this noble tradition, which is why audiences feel there is something different about Shen Yun, says the company’s website.

“I have felt that,” Mrs. Franco said.” I certainly have felt that here, and it’s a wonderful thing … it’s a very beautiful, peaceful, and happy thing!”

“I love their expressions and their faces, it’s just lovely,” she added. “The effects are just so much fun … It’s just a joy to watch.”

Mrs. Franco was hopeful that by understanding China’s history and seeing how it has changed under communism, we could “appeal to that [foundation] and build those bridges of understanding and culture together.”

“I think that all of us need to learn the truth and the forbearance and the benevolence and kindness to others,” she added.

Mr. Franco, whose distant ancestors came from China, said the performance touched his heart.

“I really appreciate the stories of each of those segments of history. It was very inspirational,” he said. “It’s special to my heart.”

Thanking the artistic director and the performers of Shen Yun, Mrs. Franco said, “thank you for all your hard work … and again, bringing us so much beauty and culture and just magnificence!”

Reporting by Lily Yu and Jennifer Schneider.

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