(Clearwisdom.net) On New Year's Day at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in
Los Angeles, Divine the Performing Arts (DPA) Chinese New Year Spectacular
completed its third of seven performances in the city.
Among the diverse audience was Kai Chen, arguably the best forward on China's
national basketball team in the late 1970s and now a political and human rights
activist.
Chen came to see the "essence" of the performance where he found
"a new renaissance. You know, it's what I call a renaissance for
conscience."
"The most important thing for me today is to come here and support this. It
is to see a new development in the Chinese community--trying to really reconnect
the Chinese speaking population with each individual's conscience," he
said.
Chen, who came to America in 1981, said that most Chinese people under the
influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lack the ability to freely
express their humanity.
Chen saw the show as "a spark" and "a beginning" for
developing humanistic culture.
"From that spark, you can start developing a new, healthy, humanistic
culture. That will take a long time, but that spark has to happen. This is only
the beginning. So this beginning, I hope, is a beginning for everybody to start
to reconnect yourself with your own humanity."
Chen said that people of all different faiths should experience this
"spontaneous occurrence."
He continued, "That is, to have this type of performance in your own way to
show that I am connected with my conscience, I am connected with my soul."
A year before the Olympics began, Chen initiated a Global Olympic Freedom
T-shirt Movement to "express the true spirit of the Olympics--the spirit of
freedom." He traveled to ten cities across four continents, including
Berlin, Vancouver, Taipei, and Washington, DC.
Because the DPA show includes programs depicting the CCP persecution of Falun
Gong, the CCP has repeatedly interfered with the performance over the years. It
has threatened the theaters not to present the show and called up officials of
other countries not to attend.
Chen hopes that the show will eventually be performed in China: "When that
happens, that's when the Communist regime will collapse. The purifier will reach
China, and at that time a free Olympics will happen. I'll go back and help them.
With that regime there, I just don't want to go back and support them. That's
it. That's my point."
http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/content/view/9637/
Category: Shen Yun Performing Arts