{"id":71617,"date":"2019-03-16T21:29:44","date_gmt":"2019-03-17T03:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=71617"},"modified":"2019-03-19T22:53:55","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T04:53:55","slug":"shen-yun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/03\/shen-yun.html","title":{"rendered":"Shen Yun"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Shen<\/a>
Milen Nachev with the Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC on 2 October 2013
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Wednesday night, my wife and I attended a Utah Opera performance of Mozart\u2019s Die Zauberfl\u00f6te<\/em> (\u201cThe Magic Flute\u201d). \u00a0It\u2019s the opera that I know best; my wife felt that she needed to ask me not to sing along. \u00a0It was a solid performance, though not my favorite: \u00a0I prefer Sarastro as an imagined Egyptian priest, not as a 1960s hippie guru. \u00a0And his beard reminded me of George Clooney\u2019s as one of the Soggy Bottom Boys in O Brother, Where Art Thou?<\/em> \u00a0But it\u2019s a great piece.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This afternoon, Saturday, we attended a performance by Shen Yun<\/em><\/a> up at\u00a0the George S. and Dolores Dor\u00e9 Eccles Theater in downtown Salt Lake City. \u00a0I had seen the billboards along I-15, but I didn\u2019t know that we were going until yesterday, and I had no idea what to expect. \u00a0Probably, I thought, state-sponsored Chinese acrobats.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, it was almost all classical Chinese dance and a few ethnic dances, some of them comic, with a couple of songs thrown in.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I was more astonished, by far, at the ideology that appeared at several points \u2014 intermittently \u2014 in the production. \u00a0Here, for example, is the printed program\u2019s description of the first scene:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once upon a time in a heavenly realm, where in bliss winged angels dwelled, ever so gradually the cosmos began declining and approaching its end. \u00a0Suddenly, one day, the Creator appears. \u00a0Addressing the divine beings, He offers them a chance to enter the future. \u00a0Their mission would be sacred, yet perilous: follow Him down to the mortal realm, and there begin to renew the cosmos. \u00a0Countless divinities answer the calling, incarnating on Earth to establish a glorious culture in the land known as China.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I realized that this simply could not possibly<\/em> be the state-sponsored performing troupe that I had thought it was. \u00a0Way<\/em> too religious. \u00a0And then there was a dance vignette depicting the persecution of the Falun Gong or Falun Dafa movement by the Communist government of China \u2014 via agents prominently wearing hammers and sickles \u2014 and it all became much clearer. \u00a0Later, at the end, an apocalyptic scene shows an enormous tsunami (represented as looming perhaps two thousand feet high) about to overwhelm a modern city. \u00a0As it draws closer, the face of Karl Marx appears in it. \u00a0And then the Creator appears, descending from the sky and saving the city.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a portion of the first of the two songs on the program:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Higher lives thus came to this painful world<\/span><\/p>\n

To learn the Way and return to Heaven, in body divine<\/span><\/p>\n

But over all our lifetimes and trials<\/span><\/p>\n

Our purpose was slowly forgot<\/span><\/p>\n

Consumed with the lives we lead<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oddly, this is at least partially congruent with elements of Die Zauberfl\u00f6te<\/em>. \u00a0Consider, for instance, this passage from the duet \u201cBei M\u00e4nnern welche Liebe f\u00fchlen,\u201d<\/a> sung by Papageno and Pamina:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mann und Weib, und Weib und Mann,<\/span><\/p>\n

Reichen an die Gottheit an.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which can be loosely translated as \u201cMan and woman, woman and man, approach divinity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Says the second of the two Shen Yun songs, referring to a premortal human existence:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Divine were we before human skin<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oh, and while we\u2019re at it, here is another passage from that second song:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Atheism and evolution are deadly ideas<\/span><\/p>\n

Modern trends destroy what makes us human<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyway, Shen Yun is manifestly a Falun Gong operation. \u00a0It was, at points, rather shockingly didactic, even preachy. \u00a0I didn\u2019t expect that at all, and I found it intriguing on multiple levels. \u00a0What a mix! \u00a0Sometimes it felt a bit like the old \u201cUp With People\u201d shows that I recall from my high school years. \u00a0It was about as subtle as a Church pageant. \u00a0But I must say, too, that the show was extremely well done. \u00a0The orchestra was very good. \u00a0The dancing was flawlessly perfect and precise, and often quite acrobatic and spectacular. \u00a0On the other hand, the Chinese and English narration, by a young American man and a young Chinese woman, was also flawlessly perfect and precise \u2014 and the narrators, unlike the dancing, struck me as far too choreographed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a fascinating afternoon. \u00a0I\u2019m still sorting it out. \u00a0I need to talk about it with one or more of the professors of Chinese in my department.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 On Wednesday night, my wife and I attended a Utah Opera performance of Mozart\u2019s Die Zauberfl\u00f6te (\u201cThe Magic Flute\u201d). \u00a0It\u2019s the opera that I know best; my wife felt that she needed to ask me not to sing along. \u00a0It was a solid performance, though not my favorite: \u00a0I prefer Sarastro as an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4234,4231,4219,4222,1965,1209,4210,4207,659,4216,4225,4213,4228,662],"class_list":["post-71617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anti-communism","tag-anti-communist","tag-china","tag-dance","tag-deification","tag-exaltation","tag-falun-dafa","tag-falun-gong","tag-magic-flute","tag-mozart","tag-premortal-existence","tag-shen-yun","tag-thesis","tag-zauberflote"],"yoast_head":"\nShen 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