COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Colorado-based actress, freelance designer, and author Lisa Kaake saw Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time at Pikes Peak Center for the Performing Arts on March 15.

Wanting to see Shen Yun for years, Mrs. Kaake said her husband surprised her with tickets for her birthday.

“It was amazing … I gave them a standing ovation,” she said. “I would love to see the show again!”

“The athleticism and prowess of the dancers—married with [their] grace and fluidity—it’s just a perfect balance.”

“I don’t know how [the performers] do it, but they left their hearts on the stage,” she added. “The emotion and the feeling that they brought were just extraordinary.”

“It wasn’t just a performance,” said Mrs. Kaake, “it was something that we were brought into as … Westerners watching a performance about Eastern culture and traditions.”

She said that the combination of Western and traditional Chinese music allowed her to “become a part of the experience instead of [it] feeling so foreign.”

A “huge fan” of the erhu, Mrs. Kaake said she was excited the performance had an erhu soloist and described the music as beautiful, emotional, and therapeutic.

“That was heartbreaking,” said Mrs. Kaake. “It really brought me to tears to see that and to see the violence next to beauty and compassion and love.”

“Some of the most powerful aspects of it were the beauty of the performers juxtaposed to the violence of communism and what it’s done to China and the powerful impact of that on the Chinese people.”

“I think artistry is a beautiful expression of your inner emotions and it’s a way of putting feelings into movement, and it is a full expression of everything that you can get across to someone,” said Mrs. Kaake.

She said she wanted to thank the Shen Yun performers for the “hard work and the dedication that they put into the performance.”

“Everything in their being was there in their performance,” she added. “It was evident that they left their hearts on the stage.”