NEW YORK CITY—John Rohe found Shen Yun Performing Arts a meaningful performance, conveying much through the art of dance.
“I like the way the dancers represented the meaning behind what they’re dancing,” he said. “The way they move gives the meaning ... and what they were trying to represent was important.”
Founded in New York in 2006, Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission to show “China before communism.”
Mr. Rohe, an ER doctor, saw Shen Yun at Lincoln Center with Stephanie Evans, a pastry chef, on April 13.
“The dancers are very graceful. And the show is very colorful. It’s a spectacular show. I love it. I love it,” Ms. Evans said.
Mr. Rohe felt the message told through movement connected the view of humanity from traditional Chinese culture to what is happening today.
“The idea that one’s being comes down from the heavens and you’re on earth for so long, and you were meant to go back. And the evil in the world is stopping you from getting there.
“And in this instance, it happens to be representing the evil in China. The totalitarian government in China is suppressing the people. And it’s tremendously evil. They kill the people for no reason other than they want to maintain their own power. ... And this very small group of people is killing them and maintaining control over them. And I can see that in what’s happening here today in the dance.”
Through music and dance, Shen Yun tells stories spanning 5,000 years, including even contemporary stories based on true events. Mr. Rohe referenced a story-based dance with showed the Chinese people who still hold on to faith and tradition despite the ongoing religious persecution by the Chinese Communist Party, adding that he is informed of these current events through reading The Epoch Times.
Tom and Ellen Pfister enjoyed Shen Yun at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on April 13, 2025. Weiyong Zhu/The Epoch Times
Also seeing Shen Yun’s last performance in the city for the season were the Pfisters, who, too, enjoyed the storyline of 5,000 years they thought Shen Yun conveyed through dance.
“The storyline is just so beautiful,” said Ellen Pfister, who works in finance. She and her husband Tom, who works in the security industry, were seeing Shen Yun for the first time. The couple thought the performance eye-opening, and said they'd learned much about a culture they knew little of.
“I didn’t know what the culture and what the people have gone through, through the years,” Mrs. Pfister said. “It’s amazing. I’m sad that this is the last night of it, because I probably would have come back twice.
“I think you would get more like the second time. Because it’s so overwhelming how beautiful and the storyline. And now understanding what the whole culture and the history and everything that they’ve gone through.”
Reporting by Frank Liang, Weiyong Zhu, and Catherine Yang.
