SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Presents the ‘Things That Unite Us Just as Humanity,’ Says Executive Director

Mar 16, 2025

3/16/2025Updated: 3/16/2025

BALTIMORE—Michelle Washington attended Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Hippodrome Theatre on March 15 and saw a spiritual China far from the contemporary state most are familiar with.

“This is an ancient culture that has transcended generation after generation. And I think that the creativity and just the beauty that means so much, you know, art, music, these are things that are deep,” said Ms. Washington, an executive director in the State Department.

“And so I think it would be a beautiful thing to see these things to be reborn all over the world.”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company. Through music and dance, Shen Yun aims to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization—or “China before communism.”

Ms. Washington felt the performance was beautiful, that the artists performed with “precision and grace,” and the stories told, “were rich and common to man.”

In Shen Yun, Ms. Washington saw recurring themes of what unites humanity—the uniting effect including a new friendship made after the performance—and felt it an important message.

“It’s very important. I was just talking to my new friend, and I think that the things that separate us are temporary. But the things that unite us just as humanity, the things that make us laugh, the things that make us cry are common demands. And I think that’s an important message,” Ms. Washington said.

One of the key uniting factors was a universal spirituality.

“I think that this idea that humans were born in heaven, that again, that the things that unite us are heavenly and spiritual and things that divide us I think are temporary,” she added.

“It’s creative, it was beautiful,” she said. “Even though this was Chinese, as an American ... I felt it deeply as well.”

Reporting by Frank Liang 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.