SANTIAGO, Dominican Republic—Deputy director of Information and Press of the Presidency Lucildo Gómez watched Shen Yun Performing Arts on Feb. 6 at the Grand Theater of Cibao Restoration Hall. Mr. Gómez said that the
performance surpassed his expectations, and highly praised Shen Yun.
“It was a phenomenon of great excellence, of great technique, of great mastery,” he said. “The artists presented, [and] they gave their best.”
Based in New York, Shen Yun was founded in 2006 by leading Chinese
artists and quickly became the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and
music company. Shen Yun’s mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture and present the beauty of China before communism.
Shen Yun’s name means “the beauty of divine beings dancing,” and Mr. Gómez expressed that he certainly saw the divine elements both in the dancing itself and in the presentation of traditional Chinese culture, which, according to Shen Yun’s
website, is deeply rooted in the spiritual teachings of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.
“I feel very calm, very peaceful because the experience was of great spiritual transcendence,” said Mr. Gómez. “It is a masterful work related to the celestial, with the ideas that they bring from the millenary history of their people. And that of course penetrates deeply into the soul.”
Shen Yun’s website also states that the ancient Chinese people believed that their culture was a gift from the heavens. Mr. Gómez said that he was particularly moved by Chinese culture’s connection to the divine.
“All the content was related to spirituality, to religion, to your own history or that of your country, which comes from divinity, from the gods, from spirituality,” Mr. Gómez observed. “I felt very good, it really touched me very deeply.”
Mr. Gómez also said that he believed the
values Shen Yun presented, such as compassion, faith, and hope, to be extremely important “because that is what gives you hope, what gives you life. What makes human beings think that they can continue walking and that they can fill their body with energy, with good ideas, with inner strength to be able to continue.”
