SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun’s Performance Covered Everything You Could Ask For, Says Business Owner

Jan 16, 2025

GREENSBORO, N.C.—Megan Cunningham, a former university dance coach turned business owner, attended Shen Yun Performing Arts’ evening show with her family on Jan. 15 at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts.

Having grown up dancing, Ms. Cunningham shared that the first things she looks for in a performance are the cleanliness of the movements and the synchronicity.

She was highly impressed with what she saw and noted that Shen Yun’s dancers were “very uniform and [their positioning was] evenly balanced across the whole stage.”

“They covered every aspect you could ask for,” Ms. Cunningham exclaimed. “I loved the colors, I loved the transitions, and just the overall picture was really, really good. I enjoyed watching that.”

According to its website, the name ‘Shen Yun” translates directly into “the beauty of divine beings dancing.” Based in New York, the artists have made it their mission to revive, through dance and music, China’s divinely inspired civilization to its pre-communist glory.

The classical Chinese dance we see in China today is heavily mixed with military and modern dance styles. Only at Shen Yun can you find it performed in its purest form—the way it was originally passed down through the generations.

Ms. Cunningham, who is deeply spiritual, was pleasantly surprised to see this aspect reflected in Shen Yun’s story-based dances.

She found the plotlines easy to follow even though there were no spoken words, and said it was “really, really cool” to see how the dancers collaborated with Shen Yun’s innovative 3D backdrop to develop the characters and “allow them to go in and out of the screen.”

Ms. Cunningham also loved the “water sleeves” worn by the female dancers. The pink sleeves billowed and flowed like the gentle movement of water on stage. This ancient Chinese attire is said to symbolize humility and grace.

“The long sleeves and the illusions [they create] were great. How long those sleeves were— the moments where [the dancers] caught them and brought them back in—that was so cool. I'd never seen that before. That was beautiful,” she said.

Harrison Lovelady enjoyed Shen Yun's evening performance at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 15, 2025. (Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times) — Harrison Lovelady enjoyed Shen Yun's evening performance at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 15, 2025. Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times

Harrison Lovelady, an account executive for Fox 8, also loved the performance.

“It’s beautiful. The performance was great, they danced so well, the choreography is amazing—it’s just a really good show,” he expressed.

“The artistic level is phenomenal. These are obviously very well-trained dancers, and it’s spectacular to watch. It’s very pleasing to the eye. The aesthetic is very good, and it’s very entertaining.”

Before the communist party’s spread of atheism, Chinese people were very spiritual and had a deep belief in the divine. For thousands of years, their values and day-to-day actions were strictly governed by the teachings of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism.

Referring to the artists’ mission to bring back this tradition, Mr. Lovelady said he enjoyed the story-based dances and thought they expressed “a real sense of social morality.”

“There’s a spiritual aspect to [the performance.] The Idea of having a good moral compass and doing what’s right is definitely prevalent throughout the show,” he shared.

For its 2024 touring season, Shen Yun’s eight equally-sized companies will be performing in over 200 cities across five continents. Met with wide acclaim since its establishment in 2006, the company can be expected to return each year with a brand-new set of choreography and musical compositions.

Reporting by Nancy Bao, Sherry Dong, and Jennifer Tseng.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.