SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Shows What Culture ‘Could Be Again,’ Says Union President

Apr 04, 2025

4/4/2025Updated: 4/4/2025

NEW YORK CITY—Joe Reilly only wished he had seen Shen Yun Performing Arts sooner.

“I waited so long. Years, probably like five years I’ve been seeing the ads on TVs and the billboards, and I always said I wanted to go—and now I’m sorry I waited so long. I’m going to come back every year,” Mr. Reilly, carpenter and president of the Local 45 carpenter’s union, said after seeing Shen Yun at Lincoln Center on April 4.

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

As union president, Mr. Reilly said his fight was for the regular people, and he could relate to that spirit in Shen Yun, and the traditional culture Shen Yun was revitalizing.

He said he saw in the performance themes like “the struggle between good and bad—the dichotomy of the human condition,” similar to what he saw in life every day, and he shared in the belief he saw in the stories that good will prevail.

“That’s what this was all about, like the regular people,” he said. “I’m betting my life on it, that goodness will prevail.”

“To bring that old tradition back is something that everybody should see. Something that everybody needs to see,” Mr. Reilly said. “That this is the way it was. And God willing, we can come back to that.”

He expressed gratitude to the performers who had undertaken such a mission, admiring their dedication. He felt they served as wonderful role models, and hoped more people would see Shen Yun.

“I can only imagine the practice and the hard work that goes into it. And they make it look effortless. They make it look so beautiful out there,” Mr. Reilly said.

“I mean, they’re showing us what it was like, you know, a thousand years ago and what it could be again, if everyone paid attention, if everyone got in line and did good instead of doing bad.”

He felt the art “definitely, without a doubt, uplifting,” adding that the emcees had shared during the performance that the ancient Chinese considered music medicine, and he believed that also.

The music was “always beautiful,” he said. “Just breathtaking. Like really, just blew me away.”

“I’m glad I came and I'll definitely be back next year,” he said.

Reporting by Sally Sun 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.