Gish Jen writes in The New Republic about the presence of Falun Gong, the Chinese new religious movement (or exercise group, depending on whom you ask), at Radio City Music Hall’s “Chinese New Year Splendor”:
A soprano sang feelingly, “For whom do we brave the elements? … / Standing on the sidewalk, followers of Dafa / Leaflets in hand born of effort and compassion / For but one purpose: to spare you misfortune / Knowing the true picture, the road ahead will be clear to you … . / We wish only to share with you a hopeful tomorrow.” This was followed, a bit later in the program, by “Heaven Awaits Us Despite Persecution,” in which wholesome, golden-shirted Dafa practitioners living peacefully in a village were beaten mercilessly by thugs with red hammer-and-sickles emblazoned on their black jackets. Then came “Dignity and Compassion,” in which a Dafa prisoner was tortured but appeared as a bodhisattva to his sleeping torturer, who was then converted and redeemed; a glowing, gold-lit land above the clouds, dotted with pavilions and deities, appeared on an enormous backdrop screen, from which more bodhisattvas came zipping down. The grand finale featured a backdrop of enormous rotating cosmic wheels in front of which danced Dafa practitioners with such uniformly beatific faces that with a few changes of clothing–Red Army uniforms for the men, for example, instead of golden shirts and khaki pants–they could have been a dance troupe in the Cultural Revolution.
Jen then reflects:
I am all for inclusion. At the same time, I do have to wonder if the previously excluded will at times bring more on their coattails than we bargained for. I suspect that, like us, many of the audience members did not realize in advance that their tickets were supporting Falun Gong. (The manager’s welcome note in the program does mention that many of the dancers of the troupe are Dafa practitioners, but nothing in its promotional advertising suggested any religious link.)
Continue reading at The New Republic.