BALTIMORE—Two artists—one a dancer, the other a musician—provided their response after seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Lyric Theatre on Sunday, Jan. 19. The couple, with years of experience in the arts, was impressed with the artistry, choreography, costumes, and the storytelling.

“I’m a dancer myself,” said Jakki Wienecke, who has done it all, including ballet. “I would in a heartbeat take classes to study this. This is right up my alley.”

“The theatrics behind it are just awesome,” Ms. Wienecke added.

“I just really wanted to see if there was some kind of a fan blowing, but it was the fabric that was that light and airy,” she said, referring to one particular dance.

“Fairies dance with silken fans that resemble flower petals. As the music swells, the maidens’ airy steps take flight in jumps and spins,” reads the Shen Yun program description of a dance titled Lotus Fairies.

John Tigar joked that his companion wants her own lotus flower, to which she laughingly replied, “And a drum.”

Mr. Tigar, who is a musician, was impressed with another aspect of Shen Yun: “The orchestra is phenomenal.”

He was particularly impressed with a contemporary story, titled The Steadfast Lotus, of a mother and daughter who practice the spiritual meditation discipline Falun Dafa. This piece shows, by dance and music, the persecution of one family in China representative of countless others.

“I like the modern one with not being allowed to meditate in China,” he said. “It was very, very moving. Very moving. It got me all choked up.”

Reporting by Tiffany Wu and Gary Feuerberg

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit Shen Yun Performing Arts.

The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.