SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

US State Department Employees Marvel at Shen Yun’s Beauty

Apr 06, 2025

4/6/2025Updated: 4/6/2025

BOSTON—A couple working for the U.S. State Department was full of praises for the performers gracing the stage at the Boch Center Wang Theatre on April 5.

Ally Wagner, a customer service manager, and her husband, Joe Wagner, an adjudication officer, marveled at the beauty and talent of Shen Yun Performing Arts, while they enjoyed the storytelling of the different dance pieces.

“They’re so dedicated. It’s amazing, the amount of work—and they make it look so effortless. I took dance as a child, so I can appreciate how hard that is,” Mrs. Wagner said. “The dancing that they’re doing is so fluid and so in sync with each other. It’s so, so difficult. They must be so dedicated. It’s amazing. So I have a lot of gratitude to them.”

“I thought it was beautiful to watch,” Mr. Wagner said. “They’re wonderful.”

Shen Yun was founded in 2006 with the mission to revive traditional Chinese culture, which has been all but lost in communist-ruled China. A big part of that effort has been showcasing authentic classical Chinese dance, Shen Yun says on its website, while such dance form in China “is regularly mixed with military or modern dance styles.”

To perform classical Chinese dance, Shen Yun dancers undergo specialized training progressions and rigorous training in unique movements and postures, according to its website.

At the core of the dance form is ancient China’s cultural traditions, which allow the dance movements to convey the personalities and feelings of characters with “unparalleled clarity,” according to Shen Yun.

Mrs. Wagner said the dance story about a young couple being forced apart because of his faith “really resonated” with her.

“That was very sad. And seeing that his faith brought him back was very, very touching, and his wife came back too and found him again. That was beautiful,” she said.

There were also some light moments that she enjoyed. “I didn’t realize there would be so much comedy—that was so fun,” she said.

She admitted that she didn’t know much about the traditional Chinese culture that was portrayed on stage, but she planned to read the performance’s program to learn more after returning home.

“I didn’t realize that about this culture—all the different deities. There’s the one main deity and many more that came down to Earth and became the people,” Mrs. Wagner said.

As Shen Yun explains on its website, ancient China was once known as a “land where gods and mortals lived in tandem and created a divinely inspired culture.” That divine culture “flourished in the land of China” for 5,000 years before communism took over, Shen Yun adds.

“It’s been fantastic. I really enjoyed it,” Ms. Wagner said. “Everyone is very, very talented.”

Reporting by Mary Man and Frank Fang.

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