SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Artists Commend Dedication of Shen Yun Artists to Art and Mission of Revival

Jan 25, 2025

DALLAS—Alexander Kotelenets, principal dancer with the Texas Ballet Theater, and his wife, Heather, and their daughter enjoyed the classical dance of another culture on Jan. 25, attending Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas.

“They were super, super, super good,” Mr. Kotelenets said of Shen Yun’s dancers. “The technique was good and flawless.”

“They were in sync all together. You know, that’s not easy to do on stage. You’ve got to dance as one team, as a group, so they were very well together dancing,” he said.

Shen Yun, based in New York, is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company and trains dancers at the affiliated Fei Tian Academy of the Arts and Fei Tian College in New York. Through music and dance, Shen Yun seeks to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization—China before communism.

Classical Chinese dance is an ancient art form that goes back thousands of years, passed down in the imperial courts and opera, and is alongside ballet, one of the most comprehensive dance systems in the world.

As a dancer, Mr. Kotelenets said that he had added perspective being on the other side of the stage that day.

He described several of the dance movements that impressed him in various dances, noting their technical difficulty. There is a saying in Chinese that it takes 10 years of training for an artist to perform one minute on stage, and Mr. Kotelenets shared a similar sentiment.

“It was graceful,” he said. “You’ve got to have good coordination and strength and balance in order to do that.”

“Seeing it from the front, it just gives a good perspective of how special arts are to people and how fantastic people’s ability in order to perform,” he said. “It’s very special to see that from a different point of view.”

“It just shows how special human beings are in order to create movement from your body, you know? That’s not easy,” he said.

The Kotelenetses said the performance was one of “good energy,” enjoying the unique production in which the classical Chinese dancers interacted with an animated backdrop of Shen Yun’s own design.

“It’s magical,” Mr. Kotelenets said.

“Phenomenal,” Mrs. Kotelenets added. “Elaborate show. Lots of athleticism with elegance.”

‘Share your culture so that it never dies out’

Also impressed with the artistry of Shen Yun was Alicia Sherrod, a ceramicist, who attended the performance with her young niece and brother, Steven Sherrod, an IT director.

“I think it was very beautiful and it was just interesting to see dances that I haven’t seen before and just see culture that I haven’t seen before,” said Ms. Sherrod.

Ms. Sherrod said she was impressed with the dedication of the artists.

“Anytime you’re an artist and you put that much effort into something, it’s been hours into it. So it’s really nice to see the outcome of all those hours in that practice,” she said.

The artists’ dedication to their mission also moved Ms. Sherrod. She shared that she is Christian and believes deeply in her faith; as such, she was inspired to see Shen Yun artists express their beliefs and the divinely inspired, traditional Chinese culture that the communist regime has sought to suppress.

“It’s so important to see people fighting for their faith in a world that wants to shut people down from believing in what they believe in. So I thought that was really beautiful.,” she said. “I think it’s just the revival of showing how important it is that if you stand for something, to continue to stand for it and to also continue to share your culture so that it never dies out.”

Reporting by Sherry Dong and Catherine Yang.

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