SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun Vivid, Joyful, and ‘What You Need,’ Says Florida Theatergoer

Jan 18, 2025

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—Andrei Atanassov, an engineer, said Shen Yun Performing Arts’ innovative stage design caught his attention right away.

The animated backdrop—Shen Yun’s own patented technology—enabled the “transformation of screen and reality,” creating a colorful fusion that Mr. Atanassov found fascinating. The use of color was nothing but pleasing to the eye, he added, vivid, bright, and nothing dark.

“The colors are very joyful, and that’s what you need,” said Mr. Atanassov at the Duke Energy Center for the Arts on Jan. 18.

New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, but since its inception in 2006, it has become known for a lot more.

With a mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization or China before communism, Shen Yun produces an all-new program each year, always a large-scale production with new compositions for the orchestra, new choreography, new stories from history and legend spanning five millennia, couture costumes, animated backdrops, and more.

“I loved it, especially the color,” Mr. Atanassov said. “The colors were very vivid, and they always catch attention.”

Mr. Atanassov added that he is from Bulgaria, a former Soviet state, and understood the harms of communism and how such regimes try to deny people their spirituality.

He appreciated Shen Yun’s full display of the spirituality of traditional Chinese culture, including starting the 5,000-year journey with the Chinese creation myth, wherein the Creator descends to earth with heavenly beings, to set into motion 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.

“That’s the uniqueness of any nation. It’s how the nation treats spirituality. Everything else is the human progress that’s the same all over the world. But the uniqueness of any nation expressed in its spirituality is something that we should all embrace,” he said. “It’s the true, real, real life.”

Darren Combs enjoyed Shen Yun at the Duke Energy Center for the Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Jan. 18, 2025. (Xinxin Teng/The Epoch Times) — Darren Combs enjoyed Shen Yun at the Duke Energy Center for the Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Jan. 18, 2025. Xinxin Teng/The Epoch Times

Also seeing Shen Yun for the first time was Darren Combs, a banker who gifted tickets to his wife and mother for Christmas and to celebrate a birthday.

“Oh, they’re having a blast,” he said. “It’s beautiful. It’s uplifting.”

“You’re seeing the dance and how the culture has changed and the experience that you get from it. You take away it,” he said. “I think it’s liberating, watching how to see where you came from and where you are today. It is a wonderful thing to see.”

Reporting by Xinxin Teng 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.