Saturday, April 5, 2014

Day 34

And it is Saturday, went to the Farmer's Market with Christine and Mark. Cool Veg.

Was excited because I was going to an afternoon performance of
traditional Chinese Dance, Shen Yun.

This is how it was promoted.
Foyer was promising, a profusion of little Chinese girls in their best pink.
But I was totally unprepared for the event that followed.

The company are not from China, they are from Falun Gong headquarters in New York, which masquerades as a Dance Academy.

The frocks were classically pretty, no actually they were beautiful and the dancers were great, but I objected to being harangued with ideology.

What it was, was American anti-Chinese propaganda combined with at least a third of the show proselytizing the religiosity of the Falun Gong cult.

There were 4 arias, sung at a black grand, extolling the benefits of Dafa. Cringe.

Worse were the dramatizations of Falun Gong adherents being persecuted while meditating.

Their attackers looked like a Tong gang in black casual street gear with red stylized hammer and sickle emblems on their shirt-backs. Looked like the propaganda vignettes from the 60's Cultural Revolution.

Can't imagine what the pink girls thought.

Worst was the American compere with his female Chinese translator.

He said that what we were witnessing was unique and it was impossible to see traditional Chinese classical dance in China, which is simply not true. The times I have sat through cultural performances from Minority peoples.

This site sums up what I felt. Basically false advertising.

http://factsoffalun.wordpress.com/tag/shen-yun/

A kind of fusion of North Korean spectaculars with Scientology recruiting tactics.

The irritating compere said it was heading for Wellington.

DON'T GO. WARN PEOPLE.






1 comment:

  1. Thank you John. I have often been tempted but knowing they were Falun Gong I hesitated. I really expected to see genuine Chinese theatre. One would think that even Falun Gong had moved on from the dreadful cultural revolution type propaganda by now. We'll give them a wide berth.

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