SHEN YUN PERFORMING ARTS REVIEWS

‘You Won’t Want to Miss It’: Ohio Mayor Says Shen Yun Is ‘A Must’

Feb 15, 2025

2/15/2025Updated: 2/19/2025

CINCINNATI—When Lebanon, Ohio, Mayor Mark Andrew Messer learned the story behind Shen Yun Performing Arts, he was honored to have the opportunity to congratulate them during their return to Cincinnati on Feb. 15.

“It’s an honor that they’re able to share that vision with people of Southwest Ohio. It was an honor to be here to support them,” and their continued “fight for freedom, equality, liberty of their own country and their own culture,” Mr. Messer said after seeing the performance at the Aronoff Center for the Arts.

As stated on its website, Shen Yun was formed in New York in 2006, by a group of artists who had come from around the world with the shared mission of reviving 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. Many of the artists had experienced religious persecution and oppression in China under the communist regime and wanted to show the world the authentic, divinely inspired culture of China before communism. Today, Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, set to perform around 800 shows this year around the globe.

“Oh it’s a must,” Mr. Messer said of what Shen Yun is trying to do. “I think we’re living in a culture today that does its best to squash the traditional values of the past. And those traditional values are what created the cultures that we stand upon today. We can’t let that go. We can’t push it down and we can’t cover it up.”

He hand-delivered a proclamation to the artists after seeing the performance on Saturday.

“In the proclamation, the thought of this being squashed by the Communist Party, the thought police, the position that they’ve taken against it, you juxtapose that against light, against truth. And you can really see who is on the correct side of history and who is not,” he said.

“It was absolutely beautiful and just breathtaking some of the movements they were able to do with their bodies, the back flips. It was incredible. The visuals were fantastic. The colors were amazing. They did an absolutely great job,” Mr. Messer said.

“Absolutely come and see this performance. It’s gorgeous and you won’t want to miss it,” he added.

Reporting by NTD 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.