Shen Yun Review: Julio M. Shiling, Cuban-American political scientist & writer

“We have art, beauty, and this goes past—and this is something very important—the postmodern era, it goes into a classical, permanent stage, but at the same time it highlights something that needs to be said. And that is particularly the cruelty that goes on in China now. I don’t think we can talk about China’s long and important history without taking into account what’s happening today... This is all precision. From a purely artistic standpoint, it’s absolutely gorgeous. But the importance for me, what I think is essential, is the fact of adding the moral aspect with a cultural event like this... The reason that we have this pandemic is thanks to the Communist Party of China. So I think it’s so brave of the promoters of Shen Yun to confront the massive machinery of the Chinese Communist Party. So I’m recommending all my friends to come and enjoy this... Communism seeks to erase history, it seeks to erase tradition, it seeks to erase that which has happened, so it can create a narrative that is false, but is the one that helps sustain their duration in power. So it’s very important to remind the world that China is much more than what happened since 1949. And work like this has to be supported because it highlights that... For us believers this is a temporary stage to a much more permanent existence, but today, materialism, communism, atheism, promotes a different view, that all that there is is what we can see and what we can touch. And it’s not really like that. A production like this, through art, promoting culture, opens the curtain to that other transcendental world, which I think is extremely important.”