SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Shares Divinity and Peace, Says Hotel Owner

Feb 17, 2025

NORTHAMPTON, UK—Donna Cooper-Barney, owner of a luxury hotel, felt a special grounding effect in the beauty of Shen Yun Performing Arts.

“Oh, it was absolutely amazing. Beautiful production. The costumes were stunning. The colors, as beautiful as a peacock. And I felt like it was very, very humbling,” Ms. Cooper-Barney said after seeing Shen Yun at the Royal & Derngate on Feb. 17. “It sort of gives you a sense of peace, calmness. The elegance that the ladies and the gentlemen put forward in the show, just the simpleness of the hands and the movements, it was absolutely stunning, beautiful.”

“I mean, the way they do all the jumps, the flips, the spins, is just incredible, really is,“ she said. ”Unbelievable, unbelievable.”

Ms. Cooper-Barney said she would be recommending Shen Yun to friends and family and telling them to “enjoy it as much as I did, and hopefully they get a piece of divine peace from it the same.”

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, known for revitalizing a millennia-old art form and one of the most comprehensive dance systems in the world. Through music and dance, Shen Yun aims to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, sharing with audiences the beauty of China before communism.

The mission struck Ms. Cooper-Barney as relevant and much-needed, sharing that the performance lent her a sense of calm that is often at odds with the pace of modern life.

“I think that’s a fantastic idea what they’ve done because I think today we get so lost up in technology and we’re so entwined into not really looking back in time, but looking forward and we’re all going a little bit too fast, too quickly,” she said. I think more people should come and see the production and get a sense of that calmness, that peacefulness, that slowing-down pace, and learn a little bit more, and take that time out to learn about the history of Shen Yun.”

“And for me, you can’t go forward without reflecting on the past. The past is so important for us all to learn and remember,” she added. “It’s absolutely fantastic what they’re doing, and amazing for the young ones. I recommend for all the young ones to come and see Shen Yun.”

Traditional Chinese culture is a divinely inspired culture, and that spirituality and connection with the divine in the art Shen Yun brought to life contributed to Ms. Cooper-Barney’s sense of peace.

“I thought it was brilliant the way it came across, I thought it was delivered beautifully,” she said of the divine connection. “It gives you very much, sitting in the audience, I think you feel connected with that.

“You get a sense of peace and calmness. So I think that divineness definitely is coming out to everybody in the audience to share. So I think it’s amazing, and feel truly blessed to have experienced it. I really do,” she added.

She commended the artists and expressed her gratitude, wanting to “thank them for sharing that divineness with us all in the audience today.”

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.