SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun ‘Very Enlightening,’ Says VP

Feb 15, 2025

HOUSTON—Kevin and Patty Johnson saw Shen Yun Performing Arts at the CFISD Visual and Performing Arts Center on Feb. 15, discovering 5,000 years of Chinese civilization through music and dance.

“Very entertaining and educational,” said Mr. Johnson, a vice president of a home building company. “You see that there’s a lot of culture that is being brought over, and I think it’s very enlightening that we can learn about the history of China and understand kind of what they bring to the world, and even to our society with their dance. Very, very, very interesting.”

Based in New York, Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, and has a mission to show audiences “China before communism.”

Mr. Johnson said he found the costumes elaborate, the colors wonderful, and the dancers amazing. Through the various stories spanning five millennia, Mr. Johnson said he discovered that China before communism was a spiritual one.

“I think the storylines are entertaining. And I find them to be somewhat enlightening about the culture,” he said.

Once known as the “Land of the Divine,” ancient China was home to a spiritual society, and the Chinese believed their culture was divinely inspired, a gift from the heavens. Ever present in the stories were ideas like good being rewarded and evil punished, or divine intervention, which Mr. Johnson admired.

“To me, it’s very powerful that a culture relies so much on spirituality that I think that we have, in our culture, gone away from it, most definitely,” Mr. Johnson said. “And it is very basic and grounded to see that that still exists in the hearts and minds of the Chinese people, for the most part.”

“It’s a very spiritual culture. That comes through loud and clear, colorful. Very oriented toward earth, and then the heavens also, kind of bringing the two together,” Mr. Johnson said.

He said one of the stories that really stuck with him was a vivid rendition of an episode from the classic novel “Journey to the West,” which was humorous and entertaining throughout but contained deeper themes.

“The fact that somebody was willing to put themselves on the line to save another was a very strong story, I thought,” he said.

“Definitely would recommend to others to come out and watch, because I think you will be not only entertained but also informed and enlightened,” Mr. Johnson added.

“It’s a tremendous show,” he said.

Reporting by Sonia 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.