“The storytelling in the form of dance is a lost art that was brought to life today,” Mr. Buchanan said.
“America has long been known as a very free country, and I think we are finding ourselves with censorship, with division, with strife; slowly seeing incredible, incredible controls put over our everyday freedoms. The storytelling that we saw today with the Shen Yun performance talks about a time of freedom before the suppression of the communist regime. So, I think it’s storytelling in reverse—your historical country versus ours.”
Mr. Buchanan felt there was a lesson to be learned from China’s fall to communism.
“The expressions and the storytelling unique to this culture and the Chinese are very similar to our culture and freedom as we came up as a young country,” he said. “China has a history of 5,000 years. Our country has a very short history comparatively.”
Mrs. Buchanan added that Shen Yun showed a version of China that many Americans are unfamiliar with and agreed that America could learn from what has happened to China.
“I think [Shen Yun] shows what your culture was like before the communists took over as opposed to what we were taught about Chinese,” she said. “You know, we were taught to fear the Chinese. We didn’t see that part of the culture. I think it can also be a forewarning for us as Americans that this is what’s going to happen to you if you don’t get a hold of your country.”
