SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun ‘Mind and Soul Elevating,’ Says Project Manager

Mar 15, 2025

3/15/2025Updated: 3/15/2025

ST. LOUIS, Mo.—Seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts, Duray Yasin felt inspired by the art, beauty, and mastery of the performance.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before. Top tier talent, top tier execution, it was beautiful honestly,” said Ms. Yasin, a project manager, who felt the experience was “mind and soul elevating.”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s top classical Chinese dance company, and its mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization piqued Ms. Yasin’s interest. On March 15, she attended the performance with Leonard Spicer, who works in technology sales, at the Stifel Theatre.

Through music and dance, Shen Yun’s mission is to show audiences the beauty of China before communism.

“It was a beautiful depiction of the history of the Chinese culture, and just being able to see their traditional wear, their artistry with how they performed, being able to see a story being depicted from beginning to end with those speaking and just through movement and music was beautiful,“ Ms. Yasin said. ”Being able to witness the level of professionalism in their art and their dancing was just phenomenal.”

“Very inspirational actually,” she added. As a lover of the arts and an amateur painter and dances herself, the movement and storytelling spoke to Ms. Yasin.

“It moved me,” she said. “I loved how there were short stories, and each story had their own lessons. That was beautiful too.”

Duray Yasin and Leonard Spicer enjoyed Shen Yun at the Stifel Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 15, 2025. (Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times) — Duray Yasin and Leonard Spicer enjoyed Shen Yun at the Stifel Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 15, 2025. Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times

One of the lessons that stuck with Ms. Yasin was, “You should stand firm in your beliefs.”

“No matter what the worldly things around you are happening, if you believe in your faith, in yourself, then you should stand strong in that for sure,” she said. “Stay true to who you are. And also, kindness as well. Kindness seemed to be a very reoccurring strength.”

There were some deep themes too, she added. One of the stories showed that “if you focus and look inward, you find the things that you need most to get to where you’re supposed to be.”

Traditional Chinese culture is divinely inspired culture, and the Chinese believed their culture a gift from the heavens. Spirituality, as well as cardinal virtues, played a central role in ancient Chinese civilization, and Ms. Yasin contrasted this against the materialist viewpoint.

“All the truly fulfilling aspects of life come from inside of you already, not from outwardly,” she said in one story exemplified. “So just having tunnel vision and focusing on yourself and the things that are true to you, reflecting inwards, is how you reach your higher self. I think that was beautiful to see. That depicted it as well. So, focusing inwards and focusing on your connection with God.”

“It makes you contemplate so many things in your personal life. It makes you appreciate the dedication that the artists have to spreading this message because it can’t be easy,” 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.