SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Ballet Dancers Impressed How Shen Yun Performers Are ‘So Together’

Apr 02, 2025

4/2/2025Updated: 4/2/2025

TORONTO—Shen Yun Performing Arts delighted the Toronto audience during its performance at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on April 2.

Jessica, Melissa, and Sofia Panetta were drawn by the artistry of Shen Yun dancers. Dancing is in the family, as Melissa Panetta was a professional ballerina. She performed with the Bolshoi and Kirov ballets, and performed in Spain and the United States. She is now a travel content creator.

With her dance experience, she noted how synchronized the dancers performed.

“I was very impressed with the male dancers. I think it was the second dance, the men’s classical Chinese dance. I liked seeing their skills. It was like not just one trick, it was multiple tricks—the whole performance. And that they are so together.”

“I don’t like going to a show and seeing the corps de ballet, the dance corps group, not doing the steps at the same time. Here they’re doing the steps all at the same time. It’s so important. Yes. It’s so hard to do that. So you can tell they have very good training,” she said.

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.

Ms. Jessica Panetta also enjoyed how the dancers performed as one. “I just love seeing how well they dance together as a group. It’s so impressive. And the costumes and how in sync they are, technically how amazing they are, and also their wonderful stage presence. It’s just really impressive. And I had no idea there was a live orchestra. I thought it was amazing.”

Sofia, who trains as a ballerina, loved the stories in dance, especially the fairies and Pigsy, a character from the classic “Journey to the West.” “I like the fairies,” she said.

Ms. Jessica Panetta, who owns a public relations and management company, said, “I am very impressed. I’ve been wanting to see this show for many, many years. And I’m never in the country when the show is on. So we’re here and we decided to come with my little ballerina.”

Ms. Melissa Panetta enjoyed a folk tale of a star-crossed romance between a celestial fairy and “the farm boy from earth, because love can overcome anything. That was the story I liked the most.”

Shen Yun features a patented 3D backdrop that interacts with the dancers, having them jump into other realms or fly in the air, which impressed the Panettas.

Ms. Melissa Panetta said: “I really like the timing of when they jump off the stage into the screen in the back. Yes, yes, yes. Perfectly. Perfect transition on the music and to the screen. Very good.”

For Ms. Jessica Panetta, the backdrop “is a character in itself. I love the transitions, how they go in and out of it. Seamless, perfect. Every time it’s been perfect. It’s crazy. It’s amazing.”

As Shen Yun is touring the world to revive China’s 5,000 years of traditional culture before communism, the present communist regime continues to suppress and persecute Falun Gong believers, including Shen Yun artists.

Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline that teaches the three principles of truth, compassion, and forbearance, and Shen Yun highlights the courage and faith of these practitioners in China in its program as well.

“I love that it’s educating us on that because that’s something I would never know,” Ms. Jessica Panetta said. “And I like how they have the narrators come in and explain, and it gives context to the story. So you can really understand it, like the whole thing.”

Her sister agreed. “Yes. That made me very sad. I have a lot of friends from China who are actually very spiritual and scared about that situation that they won’t even go back to China because of that.

“So when I was watching that part, I felt a lot of heaviness and sadness because I know what my friends go through with that. I think it’s very important, even though it’s such a hard and heavy thing, that it’s shown to everyone, like she said, to educate us all,” she said.

If she were to speak to the performers, Ms. Jessica Panetta “would ask them about their training, their foundation, where they would love to travel, what’s their favorite ballet.”

She said she would tell the performers “just how talented they are and how it’s something we'll never forget to see them perform.”

Reporting by Lan Wang and Yvonne Marcotte.

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