The first time Michael Hu saw Shen Yun Performing Arts, he was filled with excitement and struck with the idea that he was going to be a dancer. If a picture told a thousand words, then Shen Yun was a series of pictures that added up to a performance capable of conveying 5,000 years of divinely inspired culture, he said. It was exciting, grand, and profound—Hu said he wanted to tell stories with that sort of depth too. Supportive of Hu’s newfound dream, his parents sent him to a week-long summer camp to learn classical Chinese dance, the ancient art form that New York-based Shen Yun has popularized worldwide. Reality didn’t match his dream. “It was mostly stretching,” Hu said. “I didn’t really like it.” The gravity-defying leaps, flips, and tumbling techniques of classical Chinese dance require a limber and flexible dancer, and it takes a natural affinity or great …