OTTAWA—Joanne Tokessy had waited a long time to see Shen Yun Performing Arts.
“[I’ve] been waiting six years to see this show. Six years! And it was so hard to get tickets to the show,” Ms. Tokessy said at the National Arts Centre on the afternoon of March 19. “And I actually made it! It absolutely has changed my life today.”
New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, and has grown exponentially since its inception in 2006. Through dance and music, it aims to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, showing audiences “China before communism.”
Ms. Tokessy is a drummer and retired professional ballet dancer, and was deeply moved by the art.
“Absolutely amazing,” she said, moved to tears once again during intermission. “It is life-changing. I can’t stop crying. It is the most beautiful show I have seen in my life.”
“This was the first thing that I wanted to put on my bucket list that everybody says they have. And it is the first thing on my bucket list that I’ve done because I am ill also,” she said. “And this was—it is amazing. I cannot wait to see the rest of it. And I would come back and see the show again. This is for sure.”
“It is unbelievable. The whole show is just, it’s amazing. I’m speechless. I can’t stop crying. My heart is so moved and touched. And I’m almost speechless. I’m really almost speechless,” she said.
“It just made my heart so full of love and joy,” she said, adding that she’s never witnessed a dance company “so tight and so magnificent. Magnificent.”
“It’s heaven. It’s a description of heaven—in my eyes any way. This is how I feel. And I am so touched and I am overjoyed. I just can’t believe I’m here. I really cannot. I have goosebumps right now from my head to my toes,” Ms. Tokessy said.
Ms. Tokessy said she felt a brilliant flash of light during the performance, not from the production, but something from above. “I’ve got goosebumps again,” she said, describing where the light had emerged. “It was pure white.”
“That’s how I can describe what I saw and what I experienced myself. The energy of the people and it’s just so loving and caring. It’s unbelievable,” she said. “I’m feeling so much right now.”
Ms. Tokessy felt perhaps the experience at the performance was also triggering some form of natural healing, and she felt great warmth emanating from her hands.
“There are no words to describe this show, really, you have to experience it. You have to be here. You really do.”
Reporting by Dongyu Teng.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.
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