Posts Tagged → mao
Shen Yun thumbs up review
Somewhere in the time frame of 1971 to 1974, a troupe of Chinese acrobats and dancers put on an incredible performance at Penn State University’s Recreation Hall. Despite having been a wee lad up in the bleachers that evening, I can still now recall moments of their performance with shocking clarity, such were the amazing skill and feats of strength they brought to the American public.
Lots of male and especially female displays of traditional weapons mastery – spears, swords, knives – whose choreography defies even an aged and highly skeptical intellect decades later, as well as incredible and frankly unbelievable balancing + acrobatic + martial arts acts with tea cups and people, bending iron bars that the audience members were invited to try etc etc.
And now looking back, I realize that those early 1970s Chinese performers must have been the last of their kind, or maybe they were exiles, such was the crushing tyranny of Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” aimed at stamping out through murder, torture, and literal destruction of every single thing that had made China China for the past five thousand years. In any event, in Rec Hall that night I had witnessed history.
Well, fast forward about fifty years, and into the intervening gap steps Shen Yun, a modern show about “China Before Communism.” That is, before all that Mao Cultural Revolution communist crap that has destroyed one of the world’s great nations and culture. Begun in 2006, Shen Yun performances have been evolving and growing for the past sixteen years, and now boasts eight geographically dispersed troupes regularly impressing audiences around America. The Princess of Patience and I saw one such troupe in Pittsburgh, PA, this past Sunday, at the historic and beautiful Benedum Theater.
Looky here, I am no theater or musical show kind of guy. So don’t go on reading further here and expecting to encounter the usual aphorisms and adjectives “professional” art and theater critics regularly provide through their Pez dispensers.
What you are about to read is my own unvarnished layman perspective, as told from the guy who almost always falls asleep as soon as the lights go out and the curtain rises, and who is then awakened either by the sharp elbows of the theater goer to my left or by the Princess of Patience to my right. Apparently I think I am not snoring when I sleep in a theater, but in fact I do snore.
Apparently one play was stopped mid-scene while an actor asked someone to stop me from snoring, such was the distraction. What can I say, few theater performances are memorable to me. Men singing…bad. Men dancing in tights and playing dress-up…really bad. Theater and especially musicals and most especially opera are all a refined form of torture. If a play is any good, it will become a movie, which I might see and during which I probably will not fall asleep. My highly educated and experienced opinion here.
But, such is my love for the Princess of Patience, that I bought tickets and took her to see this updated version of whatever it was I had been mesmerized by fifty years ago.
To its credit, Shen Yun kept me awake. We can joke, but that is actually an achievement.
Shen Yun’s scenes or performances are relatively brief, each probably five to seven minutes long, and also varied. That constant change helps keep the audience’s attention focused. The subjects are about traditional Chinese culture, love, war, good vs. evil, history, spirituality, chivalry, family, and the performers wear culturally appropriate dress in each scene. They also have an act about forced organ harvesting, the current real-time inhumane insane crazy can’t believe this is happening actual action of murdering political prisoners and transferring their healthy organs to the unhealthy bodies of Chinese citizens who are “more equal”* than the 99.99% of the Chinese socioeconomically beneath them.
*(George Orwell, author of dystopian novel and a foreshadowing message about the present political situation in both China and America 1984, coined this phrase more equal than others in his other dystopian novel Animal Farm, where the political leader pigs betray the farm animals’ revolution against the humans and go on to corrupt the original commandment that all animals are equal in order to keep their pig selves in unintended, constant, never-ending more equal than others tyrannical mastery over all the other animals)
Something I had not seen before is Shen Yun’s use of a digital screen as the stage backdrop, instead of the traditional painted screen that would form the background for the stage in each scene. Shen Yun uses different digital backdrops, often several different ones, in each scene. They are crisp, clear, and bright. They also allow for cartoon versions of the actors to soar through the air or run away over the horizon. Maybe this is old technology, but it is a first encounter for me, and I liked it.
Things I liked about Shen Yun: The amazing dance, ballet, tumbling, and acrobatic abilities of the professional actors, the incredibly tight and perfectly executed choreography, the superior talent of the live orchestra members, and the bright and flowing costumes that must be a real b#tch to move around in. I liked all the subject matters. The simpler weapons handling wasn’t intended to be anything like the old days, but it adds a nice change to each story and act. The pleasant combining of traditional Chinese music with a modern European/ Western orchestra is very cool.
Things I did not like about Shen Yun: About a third of the acts are repetitious, despite using different costumes and some different choreography, with the same sweeping “windmill” arm motions of the actors in each one. Consider that the one act that brought the loudest applause was about a traditional Tibetan dance, complete with very different moves and costumes. Another thing that irked me was how MC/Announcer Perry’s suit crotch was obviously rumpled. Probably because I am not a regular suit wearer, my eye was immediately drawn to this unprofessional and uncomfortable anomaly. Come on, Perry, your suit must be cleaned and pressed before each performance. Even a knuckle dragging lug like me knows this.
In conclusion, I spoke with half a dozen members of the audience both inside and outside the theater, and everyone liked it. Some appreciated the simple artistic expression, despite not synching with the political, religious, or cultural messages. Others really liked the occasional blips of overt religious messaging, which if I had to guess is some sort of Bhuddist messianism that most Christians can relate to in one way or another. One audience member I spoke with said that she is politically liberal, but that she was not bothered at all by the political or religious aspects of Shen Yun: “I don’t have to agree with it to enjoy it. This is just their own artistic expression and I am here to see it and enjoy it as it is,” she said to me.
Amen.
Benedum Theater is worth visiting just to see the beautiful interior
Benedum Theater ceiling
Benedum Theater interior
If I had a big social function, I would have it at the Benedum Theater. Tons of cozy little nooks like this
If I can’t get front and center seats, I won’t go see an event that has a stage.
Shen Yun audience had everyone old, young, in between, Asian, black, white, purple…
Some parts of Pittsburgh have not been successful. Around the block from this ancient bar and hotel we encountered what had been a recently built very attractive state of the art Martin Luther King, Jr cultural resource center abandoned in an overgrown lot
Pittsburgh smartly employs vehicles powered by clean burning propane
The entire city of Pittsburgh is stunningly beautiful. This one column is representative of the beautiful hand carved stone buildings from the Victorian Age to the 1940s. Thanks to industrialists like the Mellons, Carnegies, Olivers, and Benedums, Pittsburgh is a world hub for architecture and science
The real masks come off
Over the past month or so, a national debate about whether or not to wear face masks, and under what conditions, has dominated the media headlines. Masks are said to be needed in order to prevent or reduce the transmission of Wuhan Flu. A lot of that mask debate was shaped by the ongoing public argument about whether to go back to work or to stay at home; again, allegedly to stop or slow the spread of the Wuhan Flu; or at least to spare the hospitals from being overrun.
States run by liberals, like Washington, Oregon, Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, are still largely shut down, regardless of their low Wuhan Flu deaths or hospitalization rates. Their economies are in shambles, probably by design. Their leaders emphasize even the smallest of risks, and the wearing of masks is symbolic of concurring with their grotesque risk assessment and their not-American approach to dealing with a disproven public threat. Liberals promote staying at home and wearing a mask in public as a symbol of deference to government fiat; really, a sort of face-worn sieg-heil salute to whoever the Dear Leader is in that state. Actual risks may vary by locale, but according to liberals every place is ground zero New York City.
Suddenly in a time of heavily engineered “social distancing” and compulsory mask wearing, with food shoppers everywhere carefully mincing about one another like planets on wobbly orbits, a very controlled American society indeed, an eruption of long engineered social chaos arrives. Fires, violence, looting, vandalism, insane barbaric destructive behavior, from coast to coast. Kaboom.
Flu masks off, vandal masks on. The real mask has just come off, because this is political theater to one political party. It is how they advance their political agenda. Their thinking is Trump could not be dislodged through a bunch of hoaxes, so now let’s try some serious street violence. Overwhelmingly, the graffiti, signs, and riotous behavior are anything but peaceful, with messages like “F–k Trump” etc leaving no doubt what this is really about.
If I were black, I would be upset about the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. Heck, I am “white” and I am very upset about their murders. I don’t know any “white” people who are not upset about them. These men were murdered in cold blood, and we need to make America so that it doesn’t happen again.
Like any normal American who watches the snuff video of ironically named and now former police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling heavily on Floyd’s neck until he dies, I am also concerned about the so very obviously widespread problematic culture of policing that has evolved out of hiring young combat-hardened military veterans to Protect and to Serve. If you watch enough online videos, it seems that even normal encounters with police provide an abnormal result. Law-abiding people conducting themselves lawfully are videotaped being officially manhandled, or even shot to death in their own home as they confront non-uniformed, unannounced intruders in the dead of night. So many police encounters result in an innocent civilian being unlawfully detained, unlawfully restrained, unlawfully injured, and then unlawfully charged, that if these videos are any indication of a wider theme, a police culture problem really is heavily upon all of us. And apparently it is because ‘contempt of cop’ is such an affront to the folks in blue that some of them act like they are fighting against everyone else. Us vs. Them, red vs. blue, crips vs. bloods, cops n’ robbers, Officer Chauvin vs. George Floyd… and so on.
But if I were black, I would especially be most upset about the dozens of shootings and killings that occur hourly, daily, weekly in Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, month in and month out, year after year. Cities run by white liberals for decades have the worst black poverty and violent crime. Young black men are killing each other by droves all the time, and yet…no rage. Not even upset. Not even headlines. No protests, no nothing. Silence.
So when the lid now comes off in these communities, allegedly because of George Floyd’s murder, and stores and churches are looted and destroyed, a normal person asks Why?
Why are law-abiding citizens told to stay inside, stay home, wear a mask, and God forbid if they go surfing or sun bathing or swimming or cutting hair, then they are arrested and shuffled straight off to jail, while truly masked vandals are ransacking American cities at will, with little police response?
The answer is uncomfortable. For decades, liberals have encouraged people, maybe even trained them, to act out their anger in violent ways. In many places violent vandals have been bused in, like St. Louis , Missouri, a few years ago. It is political theater to liberals. It is how their political goals that cannot be met through legitimate political channels are advanced. Nancy Pelosi used the Wuhan Flu to achieve political outcomes the American people would not otherwise grant her, except under extortion and coercion. Now how will these violent street mobs be used?
“No justice, no peace,” “By any means necessary,” “Question authority” are just a few of the confrontational battle cries that liberals have said through megaphones and loudspeakers over my lifetime. Whenever something happens that liberals don’t like or that they can exploit, out come the arsonist marchers and the destructive mobs. It is easier than working through the plodding checks-and-balances political process established in 1787.
A lawless political culture has resulted, and it is to this lawlessness that the police culture has responded in like kind. Like two planets orbiting in each other, locked in an unstable embrace.
It is said that liberalism is a mental disease, and while it is tough to argue with that, given the evidence of it right in front of us right now, it is also easy to point out that liberalism is a well considered political movement. It has lots of shaming and false outrage, as well as effective tactics and strategies, lots of lying, hypocrisy, official violence, and street mobs. Social distancing applies to law abiding middle income families, and not to the people who are destroying their businesses. Presently it seems that America’s youth have been indoctrinated to act like the young Chinese fifty years ago under Mao’s guidance, in the Cultural Revolution.
Out in America’s streets right now, the liberal mob is turning our nation upside down. The White House is literally under siege. Though obviously defective, lawless Liberalism has come to dominate almost all of America’s institutions and organizations – the media, academia, the schools, government bureaucracies, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen and Conservationists, etc. Liberalism is ascendant, while republican constitutionalism is in retreat.
The mask is off right now for all to see what liberalism is actually about. And despite its known problems, despite its ugly, scary face staring us normal people in the face, it is doing really, really well.
Liberalism is doing not too bad for a mental disease.
Happy Singing Russian-Chinese-Nazi American Children
Anyone who has seen the Goodby-Silverstein children’s chorus innocently singing away about how electing Romney will result in a destroyed planet, and how those same children already blame their parents, can only be reminded of the past use of children to attack parents in totalitarian societies.
Mao’s China, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and most infamously the Nazis, all used children’s choruses to both brainwash whole generations and also inculcate a loyalty to the big government that superseded family ties. That loyalty to government was used to break familial bonds and reinforce horrendous injustices by those governments.
Commentators have said for years that the Democratic Party had become the heir to both socialism and the totalitarian methods necessary for socialism to succeed. Over the years, I have come to that same conclusion, with some exceptions.
Watching these little children singing about hating their parents for voting for Romney sends chills up my spine. Here it is, right here on our American shores, kids raised in middle and upper income families, sending a message that the people who created and nourished them are Public Enemy Number One. If this is representative of the Democratic Party, then we are in for a true battle for the soul of America.
And piggy backing on that message is today’s Doonesbury (Gary Trudeau) political cartoon, saying that Romney will win by voter suppression, and voter fraud, and that riots will follow. Why this partisan activist continues to get published next to family cartoons is a testament to the mainstream media’s overwhelming political bias. Is there a right-wing equivalent to Doonesbury? No? Do you think that one would ever be published?
But if riots do happen, God forbid, will Liberals suddenly embrace the Second Amendment? Conservatives are generally a well-armed bunch, having spent the past fifty years voting for the Second Amendment both in the voting booth and with their wallets at gun stores. In a physical confrontation, I’d put my money on the gun, not the knife, or Gary Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” pen.