SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Artists ‘Bring Conscience to Our Minds,’ Says Pheonix Theatergoer

Mar 09, 2025

PHOENIX—When Manuel Bojorquez saw Shen Yun Performing Arts with his family, he saw something that touched on the conscience.

“The performance was phenomenal, from beginning to end. Everybody did their job and it touches my heart and my soul,” said Mr. Bojorquez, a meteorologist, at Symphony Hall on March 9. “Everything was phenomenal. Every story had a purpose and the purpose was there.”

To the artists, he wanted to say, “Your job is phenomenal because it allows us to bring conscience to our minds, so do that, and you’re doing it great.”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company. Through music and dance, Shen Yun aims to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, sharing with audiences the beauty of China before communism.

Traditional Chinese culture is divinely inspired culture, and Mr. Bojorquez felt the divine, divinity, and the supreme Creator were ever-present in the culture and performance. He felt it was a universal spirituality and message that connects regardless of one’s religion and highly important.

“I think that’s what the whole show is all about,” he said.

Shen Yun’s story-based dances indeed include heavenly beings and depictions of the divine, and Mr. Bojorquez said he felt this in other aspects of the performance as well.

“Music, for me, is the ability to connect spiritually. It’s a spiritual connection to my soul, to my heart, to my mind,” he said. “It gives me that connection spiritually speaking.”

In particular, a solo performed by an erhu virtuoso struck home, and he felt the experience was “priceless.”

Freedom was another theme he thought prominent in Shen Yun.

“The ability to speak freely, whether it’s press, faith, just freedom in general,” Mr. Bojorquez said. The fact that Shen Yun cannot perform in China, where the communist regime has sought to destroy traditional culture over its 75-year rule, was not lost on Mr. Bojorquez.

“We’re fortunate to be in a free country where we can see this performance where others are not able to do that,” he said. “I was in the military, US Army, so it’s all about freedom. And we know freedom is not free.”

“It’s a shame that we’re still seeing the same experience,” he said. “We should be past that—to be free to express yourself in any way, shape, or form. And that we’re still having those issues today is a shame.

“Reporting by Yeawen Hung 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.