New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has successfully concluded its Australia tour with full-house performances across the country.

In each city, audience members gave rave reviews about the show, calling it uplifting and a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The two-hour journey took audiences through 5,000 years of culture, tradition, and identity—very different from contemporary China under communist rule.

“Absolutely wonderful. I’ve just been spellbound by the beauty of this presentation. It is incredible,” said Imelda Roche, founder of the beauty product company Nutrimetics and property development firm, Roche Group.

“There is a lot of spirituality in the messages that come through from the presentation ... everything about it is so well coordinated.”

“To get the opportunity for people to see this culture—I think it is really, really important to understand it and what it means to many, many people.”

“For me, it was amazing to see and appreciate the culture and what it gives to the community as well. Because different societies look at different ways, so it’s very special to see,”

Apart from the cultural aspect, Benzie was also impressed by Shen Yun’s audio and visual effects.

Shen Yun features a one-of-a-kind live orchestra that perfectly combines Western symphonic instruments with traditional Chinese instruments, producing unique and exquisite melodies.

Tania MacLeod, founder and director of The Stage Door Performing Arts–a prominent dance school in Sydney, was fascinated by Shen Yun’s artistry.

Besides being a dance instructor and entrepreneur, MacLeod is also a dance examiner. Over the past 30 years, MacLeod has trained over 10,000 students and 80 teachers, as well as conducted four international Disneyland dance tours.

One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts attended Shen Yun in Queensland and found the experience very enjoyable.

Douglas Hsu, Taiwan’s chief diplomat to Australia, travelled from Canberra to the Gold Coast to watch Shen Yun on March 15.

“In the Shen Yun performance, there are actually a lot of messages that are related to the current overall situation in Taiwan,” he said, noting the constant threats of the CCP to the independent democracy.

“In the face of these coercions and oppression, we can have the courage to speak for ourselves and do the right thing.

Blair Barker, councillor for Melbourne’s City of Whitehorse, said many of the values in the show were similar to Australian values.

“When I think about truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, you see that in the celebrating [of values], compassion rewards others throughout the show. So I thought that was really touching,” Barker said.

“It’s the expansion of the rainbow, isn’t it?” she said.

“I think one of the things I’ve always found about Chinese culture is the depth of colour is very alluring, like they have the deepest of colours,” Kinnane said. “And that’s more meaningful than the normal spectrum of what we see.”

“I was always engaged by the colour [in Chinese culture], and the expression and use of colour in creating the world in which the story is told. I think it’s the depth of colour that just draws you in, and has a very deep effect,” she said.

Artist Anthony Pieters, a fine art creator and performer, said the production quality was “way higher than any pop star could put on.”

“It was a flawless show. The choreography, everyone was in sync. No matter who was at the back or the side and who was centre, everyone was moving in unison. I’ve never seen anything like that in person before,” he said.

After Archbishop Makarios Griniezakis of the Greek Orthodox Church of Australia attended Shen Yun in Sydney, he wrote a congratulatory letter to express support for the artists’ “brilliant artistic revival” of a divinely inspired culture.

“Through this rich and most captivating performance, you offer a beautiful and spiritual message to the wider society, which is of the utmost importance in our current days,” he wrote.

“This testimony of cultural and spiritual revival is not only paramount for the people of China, but it sends a pertinent message to the whole world.”

“It is through the artistic exploration of faith, love, hope, and unity that the audience is able to contemplate such virtues of which the contemporary world seeks not only to deny but to systematically reject,” the letter reads.

“These cultural performances, therefore, attempt to convince the modern person that we must search for something deeper than ourselves, being existences who dwell in this world, while not forgetting that we all have an eschatological approach and goal, which is of the other world, the world which is to come.”

Sister Mary Ekman, a former philosophy lecturer at the University of Notre Dame Australia, shared a similar view.

“It was amazing. ... It transports you throughout time to the universal truth—which is goodness, beauty, truth,” she said.

“Shen Yun, to me, is the language of beauty.”

Ekman further highlighted the importance of performing arts in delivering historic lessons.

“It shows through artistic form that history is important—and it teaches us about ourselves,” she said.

“This is why it’s important that we always stay connected to our roots, our cultural roots, no matter what culture, and that we tell the story truthfully throughout time, which is what today has been really.

“And as the saying goes, ‘Those who don’t know history are bound to repeat it.’”

Meanwhile, singer and producer Tamarind Elkin said she could see how Shen Yun’s artistry drew inspiration from the divine.

“I love all the symbolism of the divine and how artists come from God, and how art and music come from God and come from the divine,” she said.