ESCONDIDO, Calif.—Ms. Kathy Kinane, an award-winning marathon event producer, attended a sold-out performance of Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company at the California Center for the Arts on March 2 with standing ovations and curtain calls.

Ms. Kinane is founder of Kinane Events, Inc. and executive director at Move Your Feet Before You Eat®! Foundation. She has managed over 215 run and walk marathon events, and raised over $28 million dollars for the community since 1992. She has been given numerous awards such as Race Director of the Year by Competitor Magazine in 2001 and the Health Care Champion Award in 2010 for the foundation’s contribution to incentivizing the community to adopt an active lifestyle.

“We just love it!” said Ms. Kinane after watching the performance.

Independent and nonprofit, New York-based Shen Yun was established in 2006 by artists from around the world with the mission to revive China’s divinely inspired traditional Chinese culture through music and dance.

According to the Shen Yun website, “A Shen Yun performance features the world’s foremost classically trained dancers, a unique orchestra blending East and West, and dazzling animated backdrops—together creating one spectacular performance.”

Ms. Kinane had high praise for every aspect of the performance.

“The dance is wonderful how it tells the story,” she said.

The performance includes several dance pieces that transport the audience across China through 5,000 years of Chinese culture and civilization. Chinese dance “involves learning combinations of leaps, turns, flips, spins, and other aerial and tumbling techniques. It is a vast and independent system of dance,” explains the website.

Ms. Kinane marveled at the colors, the materials, and the details of Shen Yun’s costumes. She exclaimed, “The costumes are fantastic.”

“Shun Yun’s costume artists collect countless designs of traditional attire, ranging from those of emperors, ministers, and generals to the everyday clothing of the common people. They use bright colors to tailor and recreate hundreds of new pieces each season. Every detail is given meticulous attention and is a result of artistic inspiration and careful polishing,” explains the website.

A digital backdrop brings to life the context of each dance. The website explains: “With state-of-the-art graphics technology, Shen Yun’s digital-backdrop team creates vividly animated settings, extending the stage and transporting the audience to a world where heaven and earth are one.”

“I love the visual arts that you use and the integration of the dancers into the visual arts. It’s beautiful,” said Ms. Kinane.

Another major feature of Shen Yun is the orchestra, which enchanted her. “We just loved the musical accompaniments,” she said. “It’s just wonderful.”

“Shen Yun masterfully blends ancient Chinese instruments with a full Western symphony orchestra in what critics are calling a breakthrough in classical music,” explains the website. “A Western philharmonic orchestra plays the foundation, while traditional Chinese instruments lead the melodies. The sound produced is uniquely pleasing to the ear.”

Ms. Kinane also appreciated the spiritual aspect of the performance. “The message you are trying to get across is just wonderful,” she said. “I liked the little kid’s show with the bees. That was very enjoyable. All the lessons that are learned.”

She was referring to the dance entitled, When Play Turns To Panic that taught “a young scholar why one should think as well as study,” according to the program.

Ms. Kinane was also noted how far many in the audience traveled to see the performance. “I noticed [Shen Yun] attracted a crowd from all over the entire county, which is very impressive. People came from as far away as Chula Vista and Santee.”

Reporting by Laura Gu and Thanh Le

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.