SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun ‘Stunningly Beautiful,’ Says Counselor

Mar 02, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C.—It had been a while since Kevin Jones and his wife attended a performance at the Kennedy Center, and they thought Shen Yun Performing Arts would be worth the trip.

“It was great. Beautiful. Yeah, I mean the colors ... It’s stunningly beautiful,” said Mr. Jones after the March 1 performance.

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, sharing with audiences the beauty of China before communism.

Mr. Jones was amazed by the athleticism of the dancers and said that while one often saw great athleticism from highly trained dancers, it was rare that it was paired with the level of refinement as seen in Shen Yun.

“It’s tremendously ... elegant,” he said. The refined athleticism was also paired with spirituality, he added.

Mr. Jones, who works at the Justice Department but has a background in psychology and counseling, has always been interested in world religions and saw themes in the divinely inspired traditional Chinese culture that reminded him of lessons from Eastern and Western religions.

“That whole idea of enlightenment and basically we’re one with the divine, and that we’ve probably forgotten that and so the whole goal is to get reconnected with that again,” he said. “That’s done through art, I think.”

Some of the heavenly scenes were still a surprise for Mr. Jones, such as the creation legend of China referenced in Shen Yun’s opening scene with the Creator descending to the human world.

“I wasn’t aware that China had that,” he said, adding that it had some parallels to the Christian concept of salvation. “It’s very interesting.”

These spiritual stories and scenes of the divine were brought to life on stage through unique means—a digital backdrop so seamless that audience members forget the line between the stage and screen.

“It’s great,” Mr. Jones said. “In fact, I was talking to my wife about this, I said this I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a great combination of stage and film that really like blends in together so beautifully.”

“It’s really very creative,” he said.

Reporting by Terri Wu 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.