Cincinnati, the beautiful city along the Ohio River, will be hosting Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Aronoff Center for the Arts on February 15 and 16.

The world has applauded Shen Yun and Cincinnati have joined audiences in giving their whole-hearted approval in past years.

Shen Yun features a live orchestra with a combination of Eastern and Western instruments that amazes and pleases audiences.

Last year Austin Picklesimer, a safety manager in pharmaceuticals, said, “I’ve played music all my life, and hearing that different style was just amazing. It was excellent.

“I like hearing [Eastern instruments] with the strings because it evokes an emotional reaction,” he said. “You could hear the joy or the sadness in the music, and I think that made a big difference for me. It’s just a different style than we’re used to here in Western culture, so it was pretty amazing.”

Based in New York, Shen Yun was founded in 2006 and is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. Shen Yun’s mission is to revive the traditional Chinese culture of 5,000 years before communism.

“I think their message is very accurate based on what we’ve seen and what we understand communism to be, and how it’s not the traditions,” Mr. Picklesimer said. “The values that were previously there, they’re being taken away, and those freedoms [too].”

“If you understand the gravity of what that message is telling and the trials that the Chinese culture has gone through [with] the communist regime and all that, watching that unfold was impactful, it really was, and shocking,” Mr. Porzel said.

“We’re pretty guarded here in America, and we haven’t really gone through that sort of struggle. So, seeing that on stage was pretty interesting for me,” he said.

Jonathon Spanyer, an orthopedic surgeon at two Cincinnati hospitals, brought his daughters to the performance. “It’s very, very beautiful,” he said.

“I’m here with my daughters, and we’re really enjoying the show. But, also, I think it’s wise to be aware of what’s happening in the world so that we can protect ourselves, and we can hopefully help everywhere in the world,” Dr. Spanyer said.

“The performance [gave] me a good insight into some of the crimes against humanity that are happening in the world, particularly in communist China,” he said. “It’s very concerning and unfortunately a threat in China, [but it also] threatens all of us, including those of us in the United States.”

“There is so much story conveyed through the dance, and even the facial expressions, I'll say, of the actors, let alone the dancers. So to me, it’s fantastic, and I think there’s a lot more of just homegrown culture in the story, [it’s] real heartfelt stuff,” he said. “In some cases, [they] made me sad, (and others) made me joyful.”

When the curtain first opened, Jennifer Petticrew, a senior analyst for Onmicare, said how happy and captivated she was to watch the performance. “I got tears. I was really, really happy,” she said. “Just the thought of what the show stands for and the struggles that they incurred.”

“It was very comforting to see the show,” attorney Mike Riley said. “It impressed me that the values, the old values in China, correspond very closely with what I consider to be the proper values.”

“It was apparent in the songs where they talk about the Creator, and that relates to our moral values here,” he said.