WASHINGTON, D.C.—Zhao Lanjian has seen Shen Yun Performing Arts four times and says that every performance brings him a completely new experience.
“It moves and affects you from the inside out, and this is why I’ve made a point to see this performance four times,” Mr. Zhao said in Chinese after seeing Shen Yun at the Kennedy Center on Feb. 26.
Mr. Zhao was a citizen journalist in China, best known for his investigative reporting on the “chained woman” who was trafficked and abused in rural China. He was hunted by the police for his exposé and advocacy for the woman and had to flee the country.
As such, Mr. Zhao was well familiar with why New York-based Shen Yun is banned from performing in China, given its cultural mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.
Shen Yun is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, with a mission to share with audiences 5,000 years of Chinese civilization—or “China before communism.”
Mr. Zhao said that the scale of Shen Yun’s success is in and of itself praiseworthy, but the efforts and story behind it made it even moreso.
“It’s the efforts of every performer that has made Shen Yun into what it is today, and this is a religious effort,” Mr. Zhao said, referring to the fact that Shen Yun’s artists practice the spiritual discipline Falun Gong.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, teaches the three principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance, and five meditative exercises. It was introduced to the public in China in the early 1990s and gained immense popularity, but in 199 the Chinese Communist Party banned the practice, launching a violent persecution that continues today.
“I am definitely very moved. I am also very grateful to Shen Yun for conveying the glorious and excellent side of Chinese culture,” he said.
