SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Dancer Feels Connection With Divinely Inspired Culture Shown in Shen Yun

Jan 19, 2025

RALEIGH, N.C.—When dancer Kayla Jemmott saw the classical Chinese dancers of Shen Yun Performing Arts on stage, she wished she could leap up there right with them.

“I want to give the artists their flowers because it’s not easy what they do. As the audience, we sit, and we watch, and we enjoy, but we don’t also realize how much work that they go through and the prestige practice that they have to endure,” said Ms. Jemmott at the Memorial Auditorium at Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 19.

“So, definitely, I want to give my flowers to the artists, the composers, the choreographers. As a dancer myself, I wish I could run up on the stage and join, but I loved it, and I can’t wait to see it again next year.”

“From the dancing standpoint, I loved it. I loved seeing how effortlessly they moved, and yet it was still strong and portraying the story, and telling the story. I felt it,” she said. “And also just with the music, I loved the orchestra, I loved the music and how it flowed with everything. It was overall a great show.”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, credited with the revival of the ancient art form.

Through music and dance, Shen Yun’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, sharing China before communism with the world.

Prior to communism, Chinese culture was a divinely inspired culture, and Ms. Jemmott felt the spiritual nature of traditional Chinese culture through art.

“I felt like, I felt connected to it, I felt like it resonated with me,” she said. “And just hearing the music and the frequencies, it made me very relaxed. I felt like I was in a yoga session at one point.”

She said one story-based dance about enlightenment especially stayed with her because Ms. Jemmott is also spiritual, and meditates, and resonated with the character’s journey.

“‘Enlightenment’ touched my heart,” she said.

She felt the performance, with its stories from Chinese legend and history and the beauty of the production, conveyed some universal values.

“Definitely loyalty, definitely truthfulness, and above all unity. I could see the theme of unity throughout the whole show,” she said.

“My overall impression was fulfillment,” she said. “I loved it. I don’t even know what to say. I just, I loved it.”

Reporting by Nancy Bao 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.