“I am a professional. So we work with dancers, too—Flamenco dancers from Spain. So, I’m aware of ... what it takes to make all of that happen—everybody has to study for years and years and years.”

Shen Yun is based in New York state where the artists from its seven touring companies train and create an all-new show each year. It is known around the globe for its rigorous standards and exacting skills, even by the high standards of the classical Chinese performing arts world.

“Yes, beautiful, precision, such excellent exquisite movement with all the dancers,” Perrault said. “Of course, the choreography, super cool. And then kind of the humor and some very poignant spirituality that was brought out was really nice, too. So all those things. And of course their presentation, the music, super, super good, world-class, and the dancers too.”

Perrault found the scale and professionalism of their orchestra and cast especially impressive.

“They are really top, really really nice,” he said. “All those positions—the orchestra—and also the Chinese musicians with their specialized instruments. All of them have to practice their whole life to perform that way.”

“I was kind of amazed actually that you have all those dancers and all the musicians ... they’re performing their whole, studying all their lives ... And to have that many musicians and that many dancers in one show, that was really, really nice.”

What came to mind for Perrault while listening to the orchestra is that “somebody had to write all that music. That was amazing. Somebody had to write it all to go along with the dance. It wasn’t like music came first and the dancers interpreted the music.  It looked like it was put together kind of, the music to support the dance, and maybe back and forth. So that was nice.”

Perrault’s musical sensibilities proved correct: Each year, Shen Yun’s artistic director composes original scores for the entire performance.

The Flamenco guitarist found an aspect in Shen Yun that piqued his interest, a spiritual discipline he hadn’t heard of before: Falun Dafa.

Falun Dafa is an ancient meditation practice that teaches truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

Lastly, Perrault couldn’t help but marvel at the amount of effort that Shen Yun’s artists and their affiliated arts schools exhibit. “Really nice to see Chinese culture. And interesting that it’s that organization that big, the school that teaches all that dance if they have [seven] companies. That’s amazing. Super amazing.”