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A full house at the State Theatre, New Jersey. (Edward Dai/The Epoch Times)
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.—Queens council member and New York mayoral candidate Tony Avella is developing good ties with New York’s Chinatown community and has always been a supportive voice for Falun Gong practitioners. It is not surprising, then, that his Communications Director, Ms. Wang, attended the Shen Yun Performing Arts show on Father’s Day, June 21, at New Brunswick’s State Theatre.
Not that Ms. Wang needed a good reason to attend. Her heritage itself was enough to motivate her coming.
Some of the Chinese classical dance pieces, those that “talked about Chinese mythology and folklore,” these performances spoke to her. “It actually made me think about my own heritage and my own grandparents.”
“I would say it was a very comprehensive look at Chinese culture that just spans—there is so much Chinese history to cover—but they did a good job of hitting the highlights of it,” she said.
The mission of Shen Yun Performing Arts is to go beyond simply presenting the history of China and its culture. It aims to depict the divinely bestowed nature of the culture through performances of consummate loveliness and goodness.
Some of the dances are so exquisite that they deeply touch those watching. “It was very moving. The dances were great. I thought the fan dancing was very beautiful as well. It was very moving,” Ms. Wang repeated.
“I thought it was absolutely exquisite, beautiful, and very poignant. I thought the colors were marvelous, and I thought it was a good reminder of the expansive Chinese history,” Ms. Wang said.
In addition to the beauty of the show, viewers are often moved by stories of modern-day courage in the face of oppression—dances that tell about the current situation of Falun Gong in China.
“There were a couple of scenes that really stood out the most. A couple of them were the more modern ones that showed the depiction of people who practise Falun Dafa. It was very dramatic and it sort of hit home how it impacts families and tears people apart when the Chinese government comes in and persecutes people who practise Falun Dafa.”
In Heaven Awaits Us Despite Persecution for example, the piece tells of a husband and a father taken from his wife and young daughter and tortured to death—that one, of course, the father—a poignant moment, indeed, for this Father’s Day presentation.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Shen Yun Performing Arts. For more information please visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
