In Chicago, Shen Yun Seen Effecting Change

CHICAGO—When Shen Yun Performing Arts New York Company graced the stage at Chicago’s Civic Opera House on July 8, Raymond Payton was in the audience with his daughter and grandsons.

Mr. Payton came to the performance in white-and-blue, traditional tribal clothing; his tribe comes from West Africa, and he is from Ghana. This connection to traditional culture has motivated the Paytons to seek out other cultures, which led them to Shen Yun.

New York-based Shen Yun traverses the globe every year with an all-new performance of traditional Chinese music and dance, “with the mission of reviving 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese culture … [and] its values of benevolence, honor, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity, as well as a reverence for the gods and the heavens,” states the company’s website. This ancient culture and its rich values were nearly decimated by more than 60 years of communist rule in China.

The Paytons saw posters in their neighborhood; Mr. Payton said the poster “looked like a cultural explosion.” His grandsons “got excited seeing the posters.”

“I wanted my grandsons to be brought up the same way I was, watching events like that, cultures from different areas, showing their different struggles that people have in different places in the world and Shen Yun was the perfect place to come to,” Mr. Payton said.

Shen Yun presents the values of Chinese culture through legends and tales that span from the dawn of the civilization up to the modern day.

Throughout Chinese history, stories have detailed a close relationship with divinity and the heavens, with deep influence from the three main religions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Along with well-known tales such as the Monkey King, and in a previous year’s performance, Mulan, Shen Yun shows audiences the present day situation in China, which is what impacted Mr. Payton the most.

A number of dances in a Shen Yun performance depict the persecution of Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, in China. Falun Dafa is a spiritual practice that, according to Shen Yun’s website, “is guided by the principles of ‘Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance,’ and has helped over a hundred million Chinese people understand and return to the essence of traditional Chinese culture—Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist schools of thought,” but was targeted by the Chinese Communist Party for persecution.

The high’s came when there were people who stood up for what was good—for justice—and that was a relief.

“Anytime a scene like that would manifest itself it presented me with a high and a low—the fact that there’s hope; and the low came when they were being beaten … that was a low for me,” said Mr. Payton. “I don’t like seeing that type of oppression anywhere. The high’s came when there were people who stood up for what was good—for justice—and that was a relief.”

Because Shen Yun represents true traditional Chinese culture, and depicts such scenes of the oppressive situations in modern China, the renowned company cannot currently travel to China to perform.

“It opened up my eyes,” said Mr. Payton. “I did not know they were being oppressed like that—to the point where they couldn’t even perform. This was a magnificent performance and they can’t do it in their own country—that really shook me.”

“The people, through Dafa, they were actually bringing about change, and that’s the way the whole thing got to me,” said Mr. Payton. “If it was here for another day, I’d come back to see it again.”

Reporting by Valerie Avore and Zachary Stieber.

Shen Yun Performing Arts, based in New York, tours the world on a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts.

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