SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun ‘Absolutely Incredible’ and Raises Awareness, Says Engineer

Apr 19, 2025

4/19/2025Updated: 4/19/2025

EDMONTON, Alberta—Josche Macdonnell and Jen Murray saw Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time after years of wanting to see the world’s premier classical Chinese company, and found in the performance something that touched their hearts.

“I absolutely love it, absolutely. It was beautiful ... just absolutely incredible,” said Mr. Macdonnell, a senior software engineer, after seeing Shen Yun at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium the afternoon of April 19.

New York-based Shen Yun’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, or “China before communism,” through music and dance.

Knowing a little about the history of China, Mr. Macdonnell said a vignette set in contemporary China “really stood out to me.”

“They displayed what’s going on,” Mr. Macdonnell said, commending the artists and expressing his hope that the scene would raise awareness.

Shen Yun programs feature more than a dozen vignettes, including musical solos, classical Chinese dance, and ethnic and folk dances.

In the story-based dance that stood out to Mr. Macdonnell, practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong held onto faith and the traditional culture despite religious persecution by the Chinese Communist Party.

“I want more people to know about this because not enough people know about what’s actually going on there. The more people there are—maybe we can make a change somehow,” Mr. Macdonnell said.

Mr. Macdonnell said the story included the “very, very sad” reality that these people of faith are persecuted by the communist regime that tries to force people to renounce their faith, but in the stories told by Shen Yun he saw hope in the end.

“Hope and just the human condition about just trying to do better, and knowing and expressing yourself and just believing,” he said, adding that it “was awesome.”

“It’s definitely just raising up more awareness to people, and hopefully it’s tugging at their heartstrings a little bit to get them just to take a moment, pause, and think about others,” he said.

Mr. Macdonnell said he wanted to encourage the artists, whose “skill and athleticism are amazing, it’s incredible,” to forge on with their mission.

“Next year, I’m going to bring my daughter and come see it. She’s going to love it,” he said.

Reporting by Lily Yu 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.