SALT LAKE CITY, Utah—A dancer’s training is filled with discipline and grit. Lisa Fifield was the first-ever American to be contracted by a Chinese ballet company. She danced with the Guangzhou Ballet in China early in her career, and after seeing Shen Yun Performing Arts, she said she is glad that Shen Yun’s dancers can dance without fear. “I danced under the communist government and so there is such a different feeling as I watch the [Shen Yun] performers,” she said. “There is a bright, happy peace that exudes from all the dancers, and as I watched that, I cried because I remember the level of fear and the difficult rigors of training that I went through with the dancers at Guangzhou ballet.” She elaborated on her time in China: “The ridicule, even hitting and abuse—literal abuse—that the dancers went through as I was contracting with them … it’s very refreshing …