BERLIN—Vivid colors, classical music from the East and West and epic stories of courage and beauty came to the International Congress Centre in Berlin Friday night where the Divine Performing Arts kicked off its presentation of the Chinese Spectacular.
Josef Winkler, a representative of the Green Party in the German Bundestag [the national parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany], works with inter-religious dialogues and refugee issues.
Winkler was mostly impressed with one of the first scenes, the 'Nymphs of the Sea' and also the drums, "I personally found the dances with classical content interesting."
In his opinion, the performance of the orchestra was also outstanding. Winkler thought that the dancers were of high artistic standard and recognized that "they have excellent training."
"The scenes that depicted modern China were artistically sophisticated and demanding with a political message that was extremely well done."
Mr. Winkler was not at all surprised that the performance also included today's situation in China. He had been aware of this before the show as he had read in the invitation that the Falun Dafa Association is a promoter of the show.
Winkler said, "This was actually the reason why I came to the show. This is something that generally is not shown here [in Germany]. Performances here are somehow very 'folkloristic' and have no background."
"I wanted to come [to the show]," said Winkler. "Especially during the year of the Olympic Games, one should look critically at all that is going on and one should definitely produce such programs. One should not only look at it from the sports perspective, but one should also keep the human rights situation – the situation of civil liberty and freedom of belief – in mind."
Winkler also talked about today's situation in Tibet, the violence by the Chinese communists in the region and Tibetans' current outcry against it. He emphasized that his Party – the Green Party – was continuously concerned about human rights violations against members of the Falun Gong movement.
"We continue to be presented with cases that deal with refugees from China in Germany, very cruel cases. I only wish to say that every human should have the right to believe anything he or she desires. And not only at home, but also in public. We understand very well the workings of a communist system and the problems that arise in such a system. Therefore, I was very pleased that I had the opportunity to see this. The self-expression of everyday people who are not themselves oppressed, who stand up for what they believe in and still take action – I really liked it."
For information about upcoming Divine Performing Arts shows, please visit: www.DivinePerformingArts.org.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Chinese Spectacular. For our complete coverage please visit: http://en.epochtimes.com/features/dpa2008/
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