Shen Yun Tickets

not worth the very expensive tickets; although mostly adequate, the performance was far from spectacular

It was really beautiful. We felt transported to traditional culture and art of China.We loved the presentation and the creative way it has been integrated, including the projected back stage that frames every dance.

It was interesting historically and culturally but it was not the level of entertainment that I was expecting. I did not like the choppiness of having each piece announced. I misunderstood and thought that it was one consistent performance. It was childlike and innocent and naive - very consistent with the purity and innocence of the topic and culture and the spiritual aspect but somehow i did not get that from the marketing materials ahead of time. I thought it would be a dramatic, sophisticated, elegant and moving performance. I spent a lot of money for the birthday of a friend who was used to going to the opera once a month in her country and she was not impressed which was disappointing for me.

What a wonderful evening--amazing performers--fantastic dance, music, opera...a little bit of everything. Also, the costumes were gorgeous! I would definitely recommend the show to others.

The show was beautiful and interesting - the orchestra was amazing!

Quite honestly, I'm surprised that it received such wild reviews, the play seemed to be lacking a coherent theme throughout. We enjoyed the individual skits, but the first ones should have been taken out because they weren't as captivating as the second half of the show.

The performers in this show are wonderful, but unfortunately the production leaves much to be desired. First, they make extensive use of, frankly, corny CGI projected backdrops. When I pay $120 to see a dance performance, I don't expect to see cartoony animations of the dancers flying to the moon in the background. Feels very much like amateur hour at points. Also, the show is narrated between numbers, by a pair of very hokey narrators, which is totally unneeded. The program and titles alone are sufficient to understand the meaning of each dance. The dances and costumes themselves are really spectacular. Very beautiful, graceful and athletic performances. The original music was also quite good. Overall, though, the production spoils the experience.

The video background and costumes were Crayola-colored, cheesy and cheap-looking, the acts were repetitive and boring with nearly identical group choreography for each and every dance, and there was an unexpected and overtly anti-Chinese message and a pro-religious message, despite the performance's purpose to celebrate and promote classical Chinese arts and culture. I wish I had saved the cost of these tickets and purchased Lyric Opera tickets or two or three performances by a much more sophisticated Chicago dance ensemble, like Joffrey, or Hubbard Street, or River North Dance. We left at intermission and decided to celebrate Chinese culture over noodles in Chinatown instead!

The tickets for Shen Yun were far too expensive for what we got. The dancing was beautiful at times, but each act was continually interrupted by commentaries from the two masters of ceremony. And the commentaries lengthened the performance by one half hour. Solution: Slash the prices by 40-50-percent. And give one overview for every three dances

The tittle says it all. The performance was at the level of a Junior High performance. I'd caution anyone thinking this is similar to some of the great Chinese acrobat/performance shows. This is not.

This was awesome !! The awsomest thing I've ever seen !! I recommend it !! You cna't miss this show !!

My wife and I agreed, Shen Yun was enjoyable but was lacking in "wow factor" and definitely not worth the ticket price. The emcees were cheesy, and while the costumes were beautiful, the moments of truly stunning skill in dance were few and far between. It's not so much that the show was bad, I just expected more for my $100.00. To me the experience was worth $40 max.

I went to this performance because I wanted to see traditional Chinese dance. Although it wasn't highlighted in the promotional materials for the event, I knew that the performance was sponsered by Falun Dafa (a religious group banned in China). Still, I was shocked by the overtly political dances that were interspersed throughout the program. Out of maybe 20 dances, there were 3 that included a Falun Dafa practitioner murdered by Chinese policemen. What disturbed me most was the final number, when, after a protester was killed in a public square by policemen in a large Chinese city, a tsunami appeared on the screen and wiped out most of the skyscrapers in the city's skyline. In general, the performance seemed geared toward families (or maybe school field trips), with a man and a woman coming on stage after each performance to introduce the next dance, tell a bit about Chinese culture, or make a painfully corny joke. The educational slant to the performance makes the tsunami (which appeared to be divine retribution against China's communist government), all the more incongruous and uncomfortable. There were a number of dances that were quite beautiful and entertaining, but that disturbing final dance has made it difficult to remember the parts I enjoyed.

I felt that Shen Yun was good, with interesting ways of making things work with the digital background. The performance is essentially a ballet, with the dancers doing a good job of presenting short vignettes and presenting completely different themes based on Chinese culture. The singers were fine, but not (in my amateur opinion) fantastic. However, I did not realize the strong ties to Falun Gong. I don't have anything for or against the belief system, but I felt that 3 separate vignettes devoted to it to be more than I really wanted, and felt somewhat prosthelytizing. With the widespread Chinese human rights issues to present to an audience, there were many other topics that they could have demonstrated. But all of the Chinese human rights devoted performances were related to the oppression of Falun Gong, which has only been around for 20 years. One vignette devoted to it would have been fine, but 3 of them, and 100% of the modern vignettes, make this feel more like an Ayn Rand novel, hitting you over the head. I came with the idea of hearing more about Chinese culture, and especially historical culture, this strong of a focus on a 20 year old religion felt out of place. The MCs who introduced the vignettes, I could not figure out if they were trying to be deliberately (and awfully) corny or not. I think a better presentation would be to give shorter descriptions of the actual vignettes, which are all very adequately described in the program. Then spend your time talking about Chinese culture and history, and drop the attempts to be funny, it was painful. The presentation was stilted, lacked natural flow and charisma, and would be better served to be an informative rather than entertaining part of the show. Overall I was happy with the performance, we had excellent seats (although not a good bargain at $200 per seat), and I like the reminder that China is an ancient land, and the CCP is only the most recent chapter, and not the totality of the culture.

Nice but way too expensive. A lot of the dances were the same. I was expecting more livelyhood and exciting dances. The imagery of the spirits coming from the sky to save people was too repetitive and boring after the second time.

The dancing was very enjoyable and costumes were amazing. An unexpected highlight turned out to be the wonderful singers at different intervals. But the rhythm of the show felt stunted with the commentary. The two emcees were professional but the writing was cheesy and felt dumbed down for the crowd. It would have been better to choose a more mature route than the bad jokes which fell flat. Overall, it was a good show but there were undertones of religion and social views that some may find uncomfortable. I would recommend it if ticket prices were more reasonable.

I think those two words tell already everything about the show. I was moved to tears by those traditional Chinese dances. Wonderful show!

Baryshnikov must've copied his moves from these guys. Did you know they have karate moves and gymnastic flips throughout the thousands of years of dance in China? Excitement for your eyes! The vivid costumes are so awesome. It was like a tour of China without leaving your seat! We even learned a few things. It would be nice for my students who are taking a Chinese language course to listen to the descriptions of the performances.

Wonderful choreography. Beautiful costumes. A little too much promotion of religion and politics. I just wanted to learn about Chinese culture.

I was surprised at how expensive this show was but I bought tickets for me and my daughter after receiving the advertisement in the mail. It was a beautiful brochure highlighting the dancing and costume design. I agree that those two aspects were impressive BUT I was really turned off by the political propaganda. Several of the dances told the exact same story -- I get it already! Also, I was not impressed with the cartoonish jumbo-tron images of the dancers flying up to the heavens and back -- WHAT?!? It looked very amateurish. The brochure did not explain that this is basically a political and religious performance with (I'll admit) some pretty impressive dancing thrown in. I strongly urge you not to spend your money on this unless you can get really discounted tickets. The theater was nearly empty (On a Saturday night!) and I understand why. I wish I had spent the money on another Joffery Ballet performance (or really anything else!). I'll never buy tickets again without reading the general reviews on-line.