SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Vibrant, Creative, and Rooted in Tradition, Says CECC Staff Director

Mar 02, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Piero Tozzi saw Shen Yun Performing Arts his third time on March 1 at The Kennedy Center Opera House and commended the artists for their excellence.

“It’s an expression of creativity and also respect for tradition ... it’s something that is rooted in tradition but it expresses it in a vibrant and new manner,” he said.

Mr. Tozzi is the staff director of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and is familiar with Chinese culture, including the traditional Chinese culture that Shen Yun seeks to bring to life, in contrast to the Chinese communist regime that forbids Shen Yun from performing in China.

Shen Yun, based in New York, 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.

“Of course, the music and the dance is very spectacular, but also the colors,” Mr. Tozzi said. “The colors are very vivid. What the dancers wear and the background animation is also, I think, very striking.”

The erhu virtuoso also struck a chord with Mr. Tozzi, who described the performance as “very, very, very evocative.”

“First of all, her technical performance is excellent, but also, I think it conveys a certain amount of emotion and mood as well,” he said.

He compared the experience to viewing a traditional Chinese landscape painting, which brings the viewer along a journey up the mountains and down the valleys and streams, crossing rivers and pathways.

“You listen, and you hear, and it stirs you, but it almost is visual,” he said. “To me, it’s a little bit like listening to a Chinese landscape painting.”

“It’s very calming and it also, I think, it does stir you at the same time,” he said. “Music can lift you up and carry you along.”

Mr. Tozzi said the level of artistry was obviously very high, and that in itself inspires, recalling Aristotle’s concept of “arete,” or excellence as a moral virtue.

“It’s excellence, but it’s also not just technical excellence, it’s also virtue,” Mr. Tozzi explained. “It could be poetry ... Li Bai there, for example, the striving for excellence. And it’s both has a moral character and a technical character.”

“Whenever you see human creativity and the pursuit of excellence, that’s very inspiring,” he said.

Reporting by Sherry Dong 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.