KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Business analyst Eric Hyde couldn’t stop praising Shen Yun Performing Arts after attending the company’s evening show on March 13, at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. He loved every aspect of the experience.

“Very beautiful, very visually spectacular. I loved the music. It’s very relaxing, and the dancing is very, very impressive,” he said happily.

Mr. Hyde was deeply moved by the story-based dances that brought ancient legends, traditional values, as well as modern-day tales about human rights and freedom to life.

“I think those types of actions are very evil because they seek to end other people’s personal beliefs and their freedom to worship. … It’s scary to me, quite frankly.”

For thousands of years, China was a deeply spiritual civilization, rooted in the teachings of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. However, after the communist takeover in 1949, the rapid spread of atheism led to the swift erosion of the Chinese people’s belief in the divine.

Mr. Hyde said this message came across the performance loud and clear.

“That’s the really interesting part to me,” he expressed. “After this I hope to look into the different beliefs—Falun Gong—and try to understand [the practitioner’s] mission, their beliefs, their intentions, and what they stand for. It seems like a very noble thing that somebody is unfortunately trying to silence.”

“I admire their ability. I admire their talent so much. More than that, I admire that they’re not only displaying that, but they’re using their talent to try and spread peace and acceptance and love everywhere,” he said.

“They show that even if you do have a group of people in China that’s trying to stop that—the Communist Party—that there are still people willing to put their life and their talent and their occupation on the line to spread that to everybody else—to share the music, the artistry, the love, the joy, and the practice everywhere.”