ROSEMONT, Ill.—On March 14, retired company director Jim Fair and his wife Charmaine watched
Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time at the Rosemont Theatre. The couple thought the matinee was “very uplifting, exciting, and very dramatic.”
“It has a good message of peace and cooperation and trying to get the world back to a better place. We really enjoyed that,” Mr. Fair expressed.
“It’s really, really inspiring. [
Shen Yun] makes you realize how good our culture can be. How exciting our world can be if we really pay attention to it and live life the way we ought to be living it. I felt [the inspiration] in a spiritual sense—it’s very strong.”
Shen Yun was founded in 2006 by a group of leading Chinese artists who had fled the persecution of China’s ruling communist party. Following the regime’s
violent takeover in 1949, Chinese traditional culture went through a period of mass destruction.
According to the company’s website, the artists’
mission is to bring China’s 5,000 years of divinely inspired culture back to life and share with everyone “beauty before communism.”
Mr. Fair can’t wait to introduce this to his family.
“It’s a lot of fun. The dancing was really incredible and the music’s great. People of any age would enjoy it. Young people, school-age kids, would enjoy it,” he said.
“I have grandkids, and I do some music instruction with them. So, I’m going to take the program and go the Shen Yun’s
website to show them a couple of videos and
pictures.”
Mrs. Fair couldn’t agree more. She, too, said the matinee was superb and inspiring.
“There were a lot of messages. Besides the entertainment and the funny plots and the different
stories, there were a lot of lessons in it, too, I think,” she added.
“The story about
Falun Dafa—the lessons about truth, compassion, and forbearance—that applies to everything. Also, love, what’s right and wrong, and the eternal—life and heaven.”
However, due to Shen Yun’s focus on reviving traditional culture and presenting the truth of events under communist rule in present-day China, it is currently forbidden by the regime from performing in China.
Mr. Fair said that’s something we cannot forget.
“Most of what we saw today is culturally suppressed in China. You can’t go see this in China—it is crazy. In this woke, politically correct kind of world we live in—we’re all going to have to work really hard to preserve our culture and preserve traditional values,” he said.
“[Shen Yun] does that. It’s important that if you’re going to go out and promote the preservation of traditional culture, you have to be really good at it. They’re really good at it.”
He added that in addition to pure entertainment, he is reminded of the importance of keeping our culture, music, singing, and dancing alive.
“We [need to] maintain it and don’t let it get lost in the persecution that we have in a lot of countries now.”
Inspired by an article she recently read, Mrs. Fair said she believes that good and
beautiful art can save the world by lifting people up.
“[
Shen Yun] is the same. Through this beauty, I think, you can save people and remind them about the good in the world, remind them to be better selves,” she explained.
“I’ve always felt that art should be beautiful. Whatever the art is, it should be beautiful.”
Reporting by Sherry Dong and Jennifer Tseng.
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