SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Is ‘Good for Everybody,’ Says Charity Director

Dec 28, 2024

AUSTIN—Sam Pearce, executive director of a charity, has an affinity for traditional Chinese culture, a divinely inspired culture he saw in Shen Yun Performing Arts on Dec. 28 at The Long Center for the Performing Arts.

“It’s just universal, and it’s peace and love and just joy for everybody,” said Mr. Pearce. It is why he adopted his daughter from China, bringing her to America from a country where women are ill-treated, he said.

“I just love the culture, and I love everything about it, and I like the message that it was sending, too,” he said. “It was a joyful good message for all the people of the world.”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission of reviving 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.

In effect, Shen Yun shows “China before communism,” and thus cannot be seen in China ruled by the communist regime. Shen Yun’s founding artists had, in fact, fled religious persecution by the communist regime before settling in America and now bring this divinely inspired culture to nearly 1 million audience members per year.

“It’s hard to believe that you can’t worship the way you want to or think the way you want or vote the way you want without being persecuted,” Mr. Pearce said. “But it opens people’s eyes.”

Mr. Pearce learned that Shen Yun’s artists practice Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that teaches one to live by the principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance, and he said it showed.

“Absolutely, you feel it,” he said. “It’s a great way to live, and i just enjoyed it, and I respect everything that they do and stand for.”

“It’s good for everybody,” he said, adding that he lives by similar principles and applies them in his work at The Helping Center. “It’s all about giving, and the more you give, the more you got.”

He said he enjoyed the dozen vignettes Shen Yun performed over two hours and felt the stories were “all woven together with a great experience.”

“Joy, kindness, tolerance, ... respect for all, and then the beauty of music, dance, sound, lights—all of that just wrapped up into one good package,” he said.

“I loved it—it was a great show,” Mr. Pearce said. “We'll be back.”

Reporting by Nancy Ma 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.