“I thought it was extremely well balanced. Some instruments were very familiar, and it was neat to hear the Chinese instruments that were featured,” she said.

“They were all excellent. [The erhu] was perfectly in tune all the time, which is not easy to do on string instruments. She played beautifully,” Johnson said.

“I thought it was a very even combination of Eastern and Western [instrumental sounds]. Both sides of the world were represented well in the orchestra. [It was] very professional all the way around, and magical,” she said.

Johnson was also impressed by Shen Yun’s dancers who depict stories that carry messages from China’s past civilizations as well as cultural dances from its many ethnic groups.

“I think for me it was getting to see that you can dance with anything. You can dance with brooms; you can dance with napkins. It was really … well done. I loved the balance, learning about the culture, the balance between fast and slow, [it] was really educational,” Johnson said.

She summed up her evening as a “beautiful cultural experience.”

“The stories are very well told …[one needs to] step into somebody else’s culture to understand the values that go along with that culture,” she said.

“It was absolutely worth [the wait],” said Diemer. ”I think everybody should see it. It was beautiful.”

“Just perfect,” Cox said, adding that he enjoyed the story and its sense of spirituality on “the divinity of human nature.”

“[That] message was important to me,” he said.