FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—Business owner Regina Franco and her engineer husband Ricardo attended Shen Yun for the first time at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts on March 23.
“It’s amazing that they can do this [in America]—they show [Chinese] culture and life through dance. It’s very beautiful,” Mrs. Franco said.
“We would like people to be free to demonstrate their faith and culture, but we know over in China with communism right now—it’s a different world.”
The world’s leading classical Chinese dance and music company, Shen Yun Performing Arts was founded in 2006 by a group of leading Chinese artists who had fled the persecution of the communist party.
Prior to the regime’s violent takeover and its spread of atheism, China was known as the Celestial Empire—a country deeply rooted in spirituality and the belief in the divine.
“It’s important that we see what people are going through over [in China.] The more people know about it, the better it is going to be for the country. The more [people] can help,” she said.
However, due to its insistence on portraying the truth of events in present-day China under communist rule, Shen Yun is banned from performing in China.
Watching Shen Yun reminded Mrs. Franco of “how blessed we are [in America] that we can show our faith and say what we think.”
Mr. Franco, on the other hand, appreciated Shen Yun’s depiction of traditional values and thought the performance showed a mixture of “spirituality, history, culture, and the knowledge of how we may do better as people.”
“It made me think. It was very enjoyable.”
