SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun ‘Full of Colors and Positive Messages’

Mar 23, 2025

3/23/2025Updated: 3/23/2025

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario—Andrea McKinney saw Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time at the Living Arts Centre, and found it “creative, artistic, and innovative at the same time.”

The performing arts group managed to blend East and West, ancient and modern, and convey a culture once nearly lost to new audiences around the world, according to Ms. McKinney, an executive with Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) Ontario.

“I thought the performance was exceptional. Exceptional,” Ms. McKinney said after seeing the March 22 performance.

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s top classical Chinese dance company. Through music and dance, Shen Yun’s mission is to show audiences the beauty of China before communism.

“There was a lot of color in the show as well, which brought a lot of beauty in the background. The costumes were very interesting, and clearly, they put a lot of effort into making sure that the theme of the show hangs together in a way that you’re sending a very positive message, and the music matches and the dancing is great,” Ms. McKinney said. “I thought it was really interesting, the continued focus on kindness and on being redeemed.”

She said these themes of kindness and redemption were brought out in the stories and music, even sometimes through humor.

Ms. McKinney added that the performance showed communist modern China as well, but contrasted with the Falun Dafa followers who hold onto faith and tradition even in the modern day, which she found interesting.

Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a spiritual discipline that teaches the three principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance. Introduced to the public in China in the early 1990s, it gained great popularity and saw some 70 million to 100 million practitioners by the end of the decade according to official state estimates. But in 1999, the Chinese communist regime banned the practice and launched a violent persecution of its followers that continues to this day.

“I think that’s an interesting message that I don’t think we hear about a lot of the time,” Ms. McKinney said. “So in that case, the human spirit, the bravery, all these things. Yes, the unbreakable human spirit, I think, is a really positive message.”

“Clearly there is an opportunity for innovation, creativity, and color in a peaceful life,” she said.

“It was magical for sure,” Ms. McKinney said, adding that the digital backdrop the artists made use of gave the theatric performance a cinematic feel.

“It’s almost like a movie in some way, but then the characters come to life in 3D, and then they elevate literally into the clouds, which added to the story,” she said. “You really get into just kind of relaxing into the moment and letting it take you into the story because you’re right there with them.”

She said it was a performance she would recommend.

“Take the time to come and experience Shen Yun. It’s definitely something that you’re never going to forget, and particularly, we’re kind of coming out of winter, going into spring,” she said.

“The timing is really interesting too, because one of the best things for me about spring is the colors, and it is full of colors and positive messages, which I think the world needs right now,” she said.

Reporting by NTD 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.