CLEVELAND—For film director and producer Lief Bristow, Shen Yun is a reminder that peace is possible in the world.
“When you watch a show like this, you’re reminded that there are very peaceful processes and beliefs that have existed for centuries,” he said.
Mr. Bristow has perhaps a unique perspective on the process of attaining peace when it would seem impossible. As a visitor in South Africa during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—an attempt to reconcile, in some measure, the injustices perpetrated during Apartheid—he saw that “if we can find a way to find a belief in ourselves, a belief in each other, and a way to forgive and let go, then we actually can rise above all the adversities that’ve come before.”
It is part of New York-based Shen Performing Arts’s mission to show the time-honored, cherished belief in compassion, tolerance, and harmony between heaven and earth. The company travels the globe each year bringing audiences a glimpse of the grandeur, grace, and deeply profound values of ancient Chinese culture—mainly through the vehicle of classical Chinese dance and the stories of historic dynasties it depicts.
