SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

‘It’s Magnificent’: Software Company President Inspired by Shen Yun

Apr 12, 2025

4/12/2025Updated: 4/12/2025

NEW YORK CITY—Chad McClennan, president of a software company, was amazed by the creativity and ability of Shen Yun Performing Arts dancers, seeing the show for the first time at Lincoln Center on April 11.

“Oh, I think it’s just magnificent. It blends kind of artistry and history, agility, athleticism, and it’s just incredibly creative,” Mr. McClennan said. “It’s inspiring.”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company. Through music and dance, Shen Yun’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization—China before communism.

Mr. McClennan said the commitment of the artists was evident through their skill and artistry.

“The creativity and the athleticism—it is inspiring,” he said. It showed in the artists’ performance on stage, as well as the behind-the-scenes production work such as the implementation of Shen Yun’s patented backdrop, which Mr. McClennan said was creative and “adds depth and another dimension to just what would be on stage.”

He saw universal themes and value in the stories Shen Yun told through art.

“There’s stories about just humanity, you know, of love, of community, of adversity, which transcends cultures,” he said. “They’ve been relevant for 5,000 years.”

Also inspired by Shen Yun was Abraham Garcia, who was seeing the performance for the first time to celebrate his wedding anniversary with his wife.

“We’ve been wanting to come for a long time, and it was definitely worth it and everything that we expected and a lot more. The art, the performers, the outfits, the costumes—it was beautiful—and the history, the culture,” Mr. Garcia, a business owner, said.

He particularly appreciated Shen Yun’s authentic display of the traditional Chinese culture, which is divinely inspired and contains a spirituality that Mr. Garcia could relate to.

Once a missionary, Mr. Garcia said he has traveled to many countries and learned their cultures while sharing their faith, and being able to learn about the traditional Chinese culture through Shen Yun meant a lot to him.

He knew that Shen Yun artists and others face religious persecution in their home country of China, which is under the rule of a communist regime that has banned Shen Yun, so Mr. Garcia wanted to express support for the artists’ mission.

“It’s beautiful to see that you could express your faith even in the performance. ... I love it,” he said.

To the artists, he wanted to convey his gratitude: “Thank you for their art, for expressing their art. Thank you for blessing us. It was a blessing to us, right? They are sharing their talent and their gift.”

Reporting by Sally Sun, Yeawen Hung 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.