FAIRFAX, Virginia—Shen Yun Performing Art’s mission to revive the 5,000-year-old civilization of China is one that sounds lofty, but to those familiar with the culture, the New York-based performing arts company is clearly succeeding.
Zhen, an artist from China, was moved in a myriad of ways seeing a performance in Fairfax, Virginia at the George Mason University Center for the Arts on Jan. 17, 2020.
“But I believe one day it will!” Zhen said, expressing a wish that Shen Yun will someday in the future perform in China, and that the ordinary citizens of China will have the opportunity to connect to their culture once more.
“It gives you this sort of feeling, everything in the production, that you can’t find in mainland [China],” Zhen said.
China was once known as the Celestial Kingdom, and the culture believed to be divinely inspired. It was only a few decades ago that the CCP took power in China, and began its various campaigns to root out traditional culture and belief in the divine.
What Does Shen Yun Have to do With Falun Gong?
A Shen Yun production is typically made up of some 20 vignettes of dance and the occasional musical solo performance, and every so often the audience may catch a reference to Falun Gong.As the program explains, Shen Yun artists practice the spiritual meditation, which revolves around the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It is an ancient Chinese practice that shot to popularity in China in the 1990s, so much so the CCP banned and launched a vicious propaganda campaign to squash what it perceived as a movement.
“After coming to the United States and seeing the facts, many, many facts, I really feel the CCP is too evil,” Zhen said with sadness. He saw not only the CCP’s outright lies, but its persecution of many religious groups, minorities, and now the killing of innocents in Hong Kong.
Such a regime is one without humanity, Zhen said.
It broke his heart for the people of China, because despite the regime there are good people, many of whom he says are fleeing overseas because they cannot survive in such a totalitarian state that squelches culture, belief, and humanity.
Shen Yun gave Zhen hope.
“This rich cultural cornerstone of our Chinese civilization, [Shen Yun has made it so] that Westerners can too appreciate it,” Zhen said.
“Truly, this level of culture cannot be enjoyed at home. It really cannot be found in China,” Zhen said.
