STAMFORD, Connecticut—Connecticut state senator Ryan Fazio watched Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Palace Theatre on Apr. 30.
“The performance was fantastic,” said Sen. Fazio. “I'd never seen it before, and I was very excited to see it, and it even outdid my expectations for it. The homage to traditional dance and traditional Chinese culture is fantastic. It’s so important that Shen Yun is keeping those traditions and that art and that culture alive here in the present day.”
Based in New York, Shen Yun was founded in 2006 and is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. Now with eight equally sized companies touring the world simultaneously, Shen Yun’s mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture and to give its audiences a glimpse of pre-communist China.
Sen. Fazio said that he thinks Shen Yun’s mission is very important.
“Where you see persecution still to this day in the Chinese mainland, it’s a tragedy,” he said. “But because of what Shen Yun is doing, it’s keeping a lot of those traditions alive here for everyone, all the Chinese ex-pats, [and] for the entire world to see.”
“There’s something very noble about standing up for values in the face of persecution, and that’s what we see in communist societies like in China,” said Sen. Fazio. “That people, for doing what’s right, for speaking out, for refusing to deny their own beliefs, that they are persecuted, but that’s brave. That they continue to stand up for those things, and it’s very important that we have Chinese ex-pats across the world to continue to stand up for those truths where they can’t speak out in mainland China.”
“I think when you destroy a religious worldview, the things that can be imposed in its place are very dangerous,” said Sen. Fazio. “That’s exactly what you see in totalitarian societies, that the need to destroy the religious worldview in order to put in its place a worldview and ideology where the state is supreme to everything else. So, ensuring that there is a tradition in our societies, I think, is very important in order to protect people and protect people’s rights—and what is good.Lastly, Sen. Fazio said that he absolutely recommends the performance and expressed his hopes that more people will watch and support Shen Yun.
“It’s a beautiful performance. The contribution to the arts and Chinese arts is very important and very enjoyable.”
