SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Resonates With the Soul, Grabs You by the Heart, Says Berkeley Theatergoer

Jan 12, 2025

BERKELEY—Richard McNeely decided to bring the family to Shen Yun Performing Arts for his granddaughter’s birthday, to celebrate her 12th.

“And she just had a ball. It was really fun,” said Mr. McNeely, a vicar, after seeing the performance at Zellerbach Hall on Jan. 12.

It was a performance the whole family could enjoy across every age.

“There were two words that occurred to me about halfway through: Absolutely charming,” he said. “Absolutely loved it.”

Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, and takes as its mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization through the arts. Families often remark that the performance is a splendid one for children, rich with culture, traditional values, history, and humor.

“The combination of the lighting and the music and the dancing and the subject matter that just kind of reached out and captured me,” Mr. McNeely said.

Mr. McNeely said that Shen Yun’s mission was not an easy one, but it was “a very important one.”

“I think it’s very important for young people to see. They cannot appreciate this anywhere else, and they need to understand their heritage and where all of this comes from,” he said.

Though ancient and from a foreign culture, the traditional values in the performance were entirely universal, he said.

“And yes, it’s from China. And yes, that’s on the other side of the world, but you know we share so much that the feelings and the emotions and the incredible talent they saw today, I think is important for them,” Mr. McNeely said.

That traditional Chinese culture was once believed to be divinely inspired and deeply spiritual. For the ancient Chinese, morals and principles from Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism were commonplace, and on stage at Zellerbach Hall that afternoon, they were again.

“They really resonate,” Mr. McNeely said of the values. “They’re part of the human soul. And the performance just really demonstrates that and reaches out and grabs you by the heart. It was wonderful.”

Reporting by NTD 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.