BOISE, Idaho—Americans are proud to live in a country where their basic human rights are protected. Shen Yun Performing Arts is showing the world that there is hope even amidst oppression.
“I have a lot of respect for cultures that have been around for thousands of years. My family’s been in the United States for a couple hundred years, so all I know is American culture, which isn’t as deep and rich as countries that have had a development of a culture for thousands of years,” said Allen Gatfield, a principal project manager.
“It was something that I’ve never seen before, and it was very interesting trying to understand a culture that I don’t really know anything about. So it was visually, it was very catching I guess. I think everybody enjoyed it quite a lot,” Mr. Gatfield said.
Mr. Gatfield said he believes that Shen Yun’s effort to revive Chinese culture reveals “just how delicate culture can be and how quickly it can be erased if you don’t preserve it. If there is some power that decides to try to eradicate it, it’s just a generation away from disappearing.”
In one of Shen Yun’s dance stories, the persecution of Falun Dafa in modern China is depicted. Dances like this remind Americans of the freedoms that they often take for granted.
“I guess it’s sad to realize how the freedoms that we have, not everybody gets to have that,” Mr. Gatfield said.
“I noticed the songs talking about the dangers of atheism and how important it is to fight the concept of evolutionary theory and how dangerous that is,” Mr. Gatfield said.
He also noted that atheism in a communist nation is dangerous because it puts the state above all spirituality.
“The path that it sends cultures down when you want to remove spirituality or God—how dangerous that can become because then if there is no higher power, then that means your rights come from man, then that means it can be taken away,” Mr. Gatfield said.
