SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Is Very Breathtaking, Very Heartfelt, Says California Theatergoer

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Timothy and Nicolette Hoy enjoyed Shen Yun's matinee at the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center on Jan. 30, 2025. Lily Yu/The Epoch Times

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Retired tech consultant Timothy Hoy and his wife, Nicolette, a retired insurance salesperson, had been wanting to see Shen Yun Performing Arts for the past six years. On Jan. 30, they finally made it happen at the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center—and the experience far exceeded their expectations.

“It was very, very heartfelt. I felt it so deeply … I think it’s so beautiful how it is presented. I would love to come and see this over and over and over again because it is that beautiful.” Mrs. Hoy said. “You can’t really describe how beautiful it is unless you come and you see.”

The New York-based Shen Yun was founded in 2006 by elite Chinese artists who had fled the persecution of the communist party.
For 5,000 years, China’s civilization flourished under the shared belief that the divine will bless those who uphold traditional moral values. Tragically, within just a few decades of the communist party’s violent takeover, these beliefs were erased and replaced with atheism.

Today, the artists’ mission is to bring back the beauty and goodness of pre-communist China.

As a very visual person, Mr. Hoy was thoroughly impressed by “the physicality and smoothness of the dancers.”

“The choreography between the background movie and the upfront [movement] was fantastic. The way they timed that and so forth. It was just a pleasure to watch,” he expressed.

“Whenever they did beautiful visuals that came out [with] lots of colors—when the background exploded outward in the very end, it was like ‘wow’… it was pretty amazing.”

According to its website, Shen Yun’s innovative digital technology creates seamless interaction between the backdrop projection and the performers on stage. “By extending the stage to infinite realms,” this patented 3D invention brings to the audience “storytelling without limits.”

Mrs. Hoy enjoyed every aspect of the performance and especially loved the dancers’ storyline performances that told legends from ancient times to the present day.

“It was just very, very breathtaking—how they danced, the colors, the costumes—everything about it was just beautiful,” she said. “The whole story is just very, very touching to me.”

Mr. Hoy, too, was moved by Shen Yun’s depiction of good versus evil in the stories and thought the dancers “did a good job of portraying it through history.”

Moreover, he appreciated how educational the performance was and gained valuable insights into Chinese culture that he might not have learned otherwise.

“When you see things like the Mongols—the dancers and stuff like that—I would never think of the Mongols [as] capable of doing dances like that based on what I’ve read about them and the history of what I’ve heard,” he said.

“[Usually,] you think of Genghis Khan and stuff like that—then you see all this beauty come out of [Shen Yun] … It was like, ‘really?’ So, it brought a lot of culture into it. Very diverse.”

Summarizing her experience at the matinee and reflecting upon Shen Yun’s spiritual stories about good versus evil, Mrs. Hoy said the message she will be bringing home is that “what comes around goes around.”

“I believe that someday, everybody will be in heaven, and it will be so beautiful [with] no evil and no prejudice, no hurt—We all will be blessed and loved.”

Reporting by Lily Yu and Jennifer Tseng.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
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