SÃO PAULO, Brazil—Renata Barretto attended a performance at the Teatro Bradesco on the afternoon of March 19, expecting something that came out of China.
Instead, she was wowed and moved to tears by a performance that included commentary on modern-day China that could not have anything to do with the ruling communist regime.
“What I saw was completely different,” said Ms. Barretto after seeing
Shen Yun Performing Arts. Ms. Barretto is the head of global operations in Brazil for BNP Paribas Factoring, a leading European financial company.
New York-based
Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, showing audiences “China before communism.”
Ms. Barretto saw in the performance traditional culture and universal values like compassion and forbearance. The story-based dances included vignettes from ancient Chinese
history and legends, as well as stories based on
real-life events occuring today.
“You know, I think it’s courageous to see that,” she said. “[The Chinese Communist Party] are still persecuting things like this, because it’s just about love and partnership ... fraternity.”
“And it should be that everybody should be able [to have] free speech, and to believe in whatever they want and not be persecuted,” she said.
Ms. Barretto saw both tragedy and hope.
“It was a good outcome in the story,” she said. “But we know that maybe for some of the people there, it’s not happening, that they are suffering, so we should do something.”
She felt the world needed to come out and say “This is too much! You have to step [up] for this type of issue and let people be free.”
The spiritual traditional
Chinese culture was not the same as Ms. Barretto’s own, but she thought it was beautiful and something that should be nurtured, for the Chinese people’s future.
“I think it’s beautiful, the Chinese believing that, and I think you should nurture that, because this will make the Chinese, China stronger,” she said. “They will believe more in themselves and they will grow, and they will do more that ... they are supposed to do.”
“I love this show!” she said, adding that Shen Yun was “so great, and the dance was awesome.”
“It was very emotional to me,” she said.
Reporting by Mary Mann.
