ROCHESTER, N.Y.—To say that Shen Yun Performing Arts resonated deeply with Cheryl Bader after she saw the show at the Auditorium Theatre on Sunday afternoon is an understatement.

“The performance was beyond anything I could possibly imagine, from the special effects to the costumes, the singing, the music,” said Ms. Bader, who is a business manager for a company selling surgical lasers. 

“Even reading the program did not prepare me for the experience I was going to have. I actually have goose bumps talking about it. I just can’t express how beautiful it was. … It was just unbelievable and I loved the values, the storytelling. I think that’s the thing that means so much to the program.”

Shen Yun tours internationally each season showcasing the essence of China’s 5,000-year-old traditional culture—a culture rich in the values that originated from Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the three religions that formed the basis of the Middle Kingdom’s age-old civilization.

Ms. Bader said this spirituality sustained the Chinese people over the dynasties, and is something that is needed again in the world today.

“We have to have a core belief so that we can bring that from one generation to the next generation,” she said.

Noting that she is “in the healing arts indirectly through sales,” she said the stories of challenges people have overcome and the faith that carried them through that are depicted in Shen Yun had a healing power.

“That’s what I got from today, it’s just amazing, absolutely,” she said, adding that the orchestral music had the same effect.

“The music heals you.”

Shen Yun brought her to a higher level, she said.

“It brought me to a heaven. I was so enlightened by everything that I saw today, from the music to the dancers, to the colours, to the stories.”

Ms. Bader said she felt connected to the music as well as the scenes onstage that brought Shen Yun’s dancers into contact with divine beings and showed those vistas on the vividly animated digital backdrops. 

“I felt that I was part of it, and when I saw the special effects of going into the heavens, I felt like I was actually journeying with those individuals to Heaven, so the enlightenment definitely was there for me today.”

For the past four years she had wanted to see Shen Yun when it played in Rochester, but kept putting it off. She said she hopes others don’t make the same mistake.

“This is something that you cannot miss. You cannot put it on the shelf and say as I did, that ‘we’ll do it next year.' This is something that you really need to do for yourself.”

She said she’s planning to come every year from now on.

“This will become a yearly thing, and I’m trying to bring some of my other friends and family so that they can experience this as well.” 

She said Shen Yun has something everyone can appreciate, particularly the spiritual aspect of it.

“In this day and age and what’s going on in the world, I think people have to come back to individuality, into a spiritual being, into the enlightenment of what we are really here for. … And the more people that see [the show], the more people can draw from it, can actually put that into their life. And I think that would be the key, and it certainly brought that to me. 

“My daughter and I will be talking about it. Next year I’m going to bring my grandson so that he can experience that enlightenment that we felt today...It was a wonderful experience and it will stay within my heart forever.” 

Reporting by NTD Television and Joan Delaney

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform around the world. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org.

Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reaction since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006