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I suspect that very few of the audience for the Divine Arts performance 'Glorious Culture reborn!' had any idea what they had really paid to come and see: the press release says nothing about it, the Divine Performing Arts website doesn't mention it, but if you look closely at the bottom of the poster you will see in very small print 'presented by UK Falun Gong Association'. What has been showcased as the "Traditional Chinese culture in a colourful gala of music and dance. Inspired by ancient Chinese culture" turns out to be a fund raising and propaganda show for the para-religious Falun Gong cult.
The Divine Performing Arts/Falun Gong show consists of a series of five minute music and dance routines introduced by two brutally unfunny comperes. Each dance sequence tells a story varying from exotic tableau's drawn from 'authentic Chinese culture' (complete with 3d back projections of animated golden Buddhas and over-coloured stylised 'Chinese' landscapes) to heavy handed laughably unsophisticated propaganda pieces (baddies dressed in black with red hammer and sickles painted on their backs beat up the saintly and demure falun gong practitioners - but, witnessing the resolve of said practitioners, renounce their evil deeds and are admitted to a gaudy heaven).
The choreography and music are lavishly and impeccably produced and performed - yet somehow clinical and anodyne, suffused with an air of over-enthusiastic evangelism. There is an ever present need to communicate the tenets of Falun Dafa - sometimes blatantly but often coded in obscure lyrics ". Once you have arrived at the truth, then comes the chance of renewal…". What was supposed to come across as spiritually uplifting, for me came across as an unintentional exercise in oriental surrealism.
Despite the constant reminder that this was 'Authentic Chinese Culture' (before it was mangled by the evil communists) the dance routines have more in common with 'The Sound of Music' than anything historically Chinese. Similarly, the music is a saccharine filmic collision of European orchestral modes with Chinese instrumentation i.e. lots and lots of violins and some gongs.
Ironically the closest stylistic comparison is with Cultural Revolution era pieces in terms of execution and content. The Falun Dafa message of anti-modernity and simplicity fits well with late sixties Maoism. Think of 'Red Detachment of Women' and you have an approximation of the propaganda tactics employed - simple messages wrapped up in short and colourful routines designed for an unsophisticated audience.
If the Divine Performing Arts group had been honest about the content of their performance from the beginning I would have been less suspicious of their intentions and perhaps more receptive to their message. As it is, I feel duped and misled which only increases my suspicion of Falun Gong as an organisation and makes it clear to me why the PRC government is so wary of them.
Simon Crab |
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