SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

Shen Yun’s Unique Backdrop Brings Stories to Life for Couple

Mar 29, 2025

3/29/2025Updated: 3/29/2025

WORCESTER, Mass.—Heidi and Mike Franciosi enjoyed Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Hanover Theatre as much this year as they did years before.

From the moment dry ice clouds filled the stage, Mr. Franciosi was hooked. “The dry ice smoke was my special for today. It just rolled, rolled into the audience.

Mr. Franciosi, a self-employed contractor, said, “We loved it. We were here seven years ago.”

Shen Yun’s patented 3D backdrop interacts with performers who seem to jump and fly into the screen. “I loved how they jumped into the screen. ... There’s something special about that,” Mr. Franciosi said.

Mrs. Franciosi felt the backdrop takes the audience into a higher realm of heavenly beings. “It transcends you. It transcends you to the beings above.”

Shen Yun’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture before communism. The couple enjoyed several stories presented.

“I did love the prison one, and I loved the love story, too,” Mrs. Franciosi said, referring to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the communist regime.

One story brought up deep feelings for the couple. Mrs. Franciosi said, “I think you get really teary-eyed, especially with the prison one, you see what he was like, what he went through because he liked his religion. That put him in prison, and then the persecution for that. That was very emotional because we don’t deal with that here.”

She noted how different it is in a free country, like America. “You’re able to worship wherever you want to worship, which you can’t in other countries. We don’t know that.

“So that was very heartbreaking. And, too, just to be able to express yourself, where you can’t always express yourself in some places. So I thought that was beautiful, too.”

Beautiful music presented by singers and musicians is a popular segment of Shen Yun’s performance. Mr. Franciosi said, “It’s great. For the first half an hour of the show, I didn’t know we were listening to an orchestra because the music was almost too perfect.”

Shen Yun features a live orchestra with Eastern and Western instruments that impressed the couple. “I actually thought it was a tape at first until they introduced an orchestra,” Mrs. Franciosi said.

“Until the conductor stood up, turned and faced us, I didn’t know it myself,” her husband said.

Mrs. Franciosi was impressed with the soloist who played the Chinese two-stringed instrument called the erhu. “Oh, it was awesome. Awesome. And I didn’t know that you could play an instrument with only two strings. I thought that was amazing. She did a beautiful, beautiful job,” she said.

The singers carried a spiritual message that resonated with the couple. “The music that they sang with the spiritual note behind it, it was beautiful,” said Mrs. Franciosi.

“I’m glad we came,” he said.

It seemed to the Franciosis that there’s more to Shen Yun 2025 production than they recalled at their first experience. Every year is a new performance.

“I think they added more this year. They had more of the singers. In the first couple of years we came, they didn’t have that. So they always had a different element. It’s always a different story, and it connects you to nature and spirit, which is beautiful.”

To the performers, Mrs. Franciosi said, “Thank you for what you do every day. It was amazing. It was amazing.”

Mrs. Franciosi said, “I would have everybody come and see this. Definitely come and see it. It is a once-in-a-lifetime thing to experience it. The dancing, the music, the art behind it, the scenes, and everything, it is beautiful. Definitely a beautiful performance.”

Mrs. Franciosi, who makes special orders for customers, said, “We love this show. We were here, yes, to see the show. This one was beautiful. We loved it. We would come again. Definitely. Definitely come again. It was beautiful.”

Reporting by Mary Man and Yvonne Marcotte.

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