‘I Think About Humanity When I Hear Shen Yun’: Emmy-Winning Director

NORFOLK, Va.—The last time Emmy-winning newscast director Erica Garnes attended Shen Yun Performing Arts she was still a teenager. Returning to see the company’s performance again at the Chrysler Hall on the evening of Jan. 7, Ms. Garnes found a deeper appreciation for Shen Yun.

“There is definitely a loss for words when you come to something like this because our western culture is [so] different. This is completely new.”

“I saw Shen Yun for the first time when I was 17. Being an adult, I see more of the world [and] more of the people that are involved in the arts,” Ms. Garnes said. “I see how [people] can be brought together. How diverse [different] cultures can be, but still, blend with ours.”

Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. The New-York based artists have made it their mission to revive China’s 5,000 years of divinely-inspired culture destroyed by decades of communist rule and the regime’s spread of atheism.

Since its establishment in 2006, Shen Yun has grown to include eight equally sized companies that tour the world simultaneously to showcase the beauty of pre-communist China.

Ms. Garnes said she’s glad that [Shen Yun] is sharing their culture with the world because “that’s something we don’t do enough nowadays. [We’re not] looking back on our traditions, religion, the world itself, and how we treat other people.”

“Shen Yun—I think about humanity when I hear this name. I look forward to seeing it again.”

Reporting by Terri Wu 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.