SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun ‘Instills Powerful Emotions,’ Says Attorney

Jan 19, 2025

RALEIGH, N.C.—Shen Yun Performing Arts’ performance of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization was culturally entirely new to the Ganotes, but it was art that transcended any sort of language barrier, said Claudia Ganote.

Mrs. Ganote and her husband, David, an attorney, saw Shen Yun at the Memorial Auditorium at Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 19, and felt inspired to know more about the culture, and the arts in general.

“The ability of the storytelling without having any words, the expressions and the emotiveness of the dancers and the performers, along with the music, it didn’t need any type of interpretation or language to understand the feelings and the story behind it,” Mrs. Ganote said.

Mrs. Ganote said Shen Yun’s art spoke cross-culturally, and it spoke of unity.

“There’s a youth and vitality and culture and story,” Mr. Ganote added. “It’s very evocative ... it instills powerful emotions, which I definitely enjoyed the performance.”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission to share with audiences China before communism.

“I enjoyed the experience a lot,” Mr. Ganote said. He felt every aspect of the performance came together to deliver a story, adding that Shen Yun’s unique animated backdrop left a powerful impression, as if blending worlds of video and reality, of stage and screen, the heavens and earth. Seeing Shen Yun inspired him to engage more in the performing arts.

“Just the color, the music, the choreography, everything kind of is transcendent. And so it is very uplifting. It’s just a powerful emotion,” Mr. Ganote said.

Mrs. Ganote agreed, adding that the spirituality of the history and storytelling was a key aspect she also enjoyed.

“The combination and the fluidity of the athleticism ... as well as the structure and the techniques ... along with traditional dance methods. I was so impressed and wish we had more of that here in our country,” Mrs. Ganote said.

With a background in classical music, Mrs. Ganote listened to the bel canto soloists and the orchestra accompanying the dances with a trained ear and was thoroughly impressed.

“It was incredible,” she said. “You could understand the feelings and the impact of it through the range of the tones as they were singing the story. So that, mixed with the orchestral part of it, I think it was a well orchestrated combination of musicality.”

This divinely inspired culture was worlds apart from the China most people know of today, and Mrs. Ganote was pleasantly surprised. The story-based dances spoke of the Creator, divinity, and spirituality, Mrs. Ganote said, in a way that she hadn’t associated with the Chinese culture.

“It opened my mind to something that’s a little bit more than what’s normally presented when we think of China as a culture,” she said.

Reporting by Sherry Dong 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.