SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Professional Dancer Feels Honored to Witness Chinese Culture Through Shen Yun

Mar 17, 2024

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Elizabeth Morales, a professional dancer, was excited when her sister and brother-in-law invited her to see Shen Yun Performing Arts with them. She had seen plenty of Shen Yun’s colorful advertisements before, and when she was able to finally see the performance in person at the Pikes Peak Center for the Performing Arts on March 16, Ms. Morales’ nineteen years of dance experience only made her more appreciative of the artistry she witnessed.

“It was breathtaking,” she said. “As a dancer, I loved watching the art, the artistry. Not only is it incredible they can lift their leg up that high, but just the flow of the movement, the precision of their arms. Like as a dancer, I know how hard that is … [yet] it looks so effortless as well. It was breathtaking, it was beautiful.”

Based in New York, Shen Yun was founded in 2006 by leading Chinese artists and quickly became the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. Now, with eight equally sized companies that tour the world simultaneously, Shen Yun is on a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture and the beauty of China before communism.

“I was just overcome by the beauty of it,” said Ms. Morales. “There was just kind of like a peace of just sitting and watching it.”

The beauty of Shen Yun’s performance was not the only element that left a deep impression on Ms. Morales. When she saw one of the story-based dances depicting the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of followers of faith in modern-day China, Ms. Morales found that the performance made her reflect and contemplate as well.

“The scenes where there was more turmoil involved, just really sitting and thinking like, wow, what would it be like to be able to be persecuted for just wanting to practice my beliefs the way I want to? So that was very thought-provoking for me.”

“I definitely felt the connection of this idea of feeling something convicted, like deeply convicted and spiritual and wanting to be able to practice that. I definitely felt a connection in that of just wanting to be allowed to believe what you want and worship as you please and just that that deep conviction, I definitely connected with that.”

A dancer since she was 6, Ms. Morales was able to immediately recognize the difficulty required to achieve the level of expertise she saw in Shen Yun’s performers, and she was impressed by what she saw.

“The precision of it, like how in sync they were, the lines of their arms were all the same, their timing was exactly the same, that really stood out to me as a dancer,” said Ms. Morales. “It is incredibly hard. Even timing right when they’re spinning, it’s like, okay, you can’t just say we’re gonna take eight counts to spin. They have to be turning at the exact same time in order for it to be that in sync. And so I don’t know how they did it. I don’t know how much time that took, but I know it took a lot.”

Ms. Morales also shared what it was like for her to see traditional Chinese culture.

“I was honored to be able to witness the culture,” she said. “I think it’s really important for people to learn and experience other cultures, realize that like our way of doing things … it’s not the only way. And so I was just honored to be able to witness a culture that I could tell they were very, very passionate about and really passionate to share with other people. I was just honored to be able to witness that and to receive that.”

Reporting by NTD and Wandi Zhu.

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