Finally surrendering to its famously ubiquitous advertising, I saw Shen Yun on Saturday afternoon. I knew that the Chinese Communist regime is against them, and vice versa, and that was enough for me to be, at the very least, curious. I loved it. The dancing was some of the most spectacular I've ever seen, and an instrumental erhu soloist was impressive too. An animated electronic backdrop makes it look as if dancers are moving in between the real stage and the fantastical worlds and eras depicted on the screen. I've seen live theater and I've seen animated movies, but I've never seen them put together quite like that. Everything is beautiful and colorful, except for when evil communist characters (quite rightly depicted as dark and sinister) appear.
Most of all I found it wonderfully refreshing to see a production that unlike too many contemporary Western opera, ballet, or theater productions was not trying to "deconstruct" or "update" anything, simply an unapologetically lavish, beautiful, and proud celebration of an ancient traditional homogenous and monarchical culture: "China Before Communism." (Why can't we have more shows that do that with European culture?) While I don't necessarily agree with all of the Falun Gong (I learned that its adherents apparently prefer the name "Falun Dafa") movement's ideas, I certainly do agree with its anti-communist ones. My only criticism would be that, accustomed to ballets in which the plot is explained in detail in the program, I wasn't always sure exactly what was being pantomimed in a few of the numbers. But everything is so gorgeous to look at, with so much elegant athleticism, that that didn’t matter much. If you've ever wondered what all that advertising is about, I highly recommend Shen Yun.
