Shen Yun, Hammersmith Apollo London, 14/4/23

 It wasn't my idea. But to be fair when my brother suggested this I was vaguely interested and willingly agreed, since we were in London anyway (for the cancelled Live Dead '69 tour).

It was busy when we arrived - looked like a sell-out. I went to the Gents and was surprised with "I got you a programme" from J, my sister-in-law when I got back. After thanking her profusely for the glossy booklet she confessed that it was a freebee. It wasn't until we asked my brother how much the tickets had cost us that we realised why ("Oh about £90" ..."What! EACH?!!!!!").

So each dance or performance piece (lasting 5-10 minutes) is preceded by an introduction from our two hosts in English and a Chinese language, presumably Mandarin. They tell us either the story we're about to see ("Chinese dance stories") or the context of the piece ("classical Chinese dance"). Much is made of the tradition behind what we are seeing, which "dates back 5000 years".

Technically you can't fault the dancers. They are in turn graceful, athletic, poised, and though many of the pieces are frankly pedestrian, some are spectacular. And the backdrop - huge projected technicolour-IMAX-type scenes of mountains, lakes, forests, temples, medieval towns - is equally spectacular.  But I am left puzzled early on, when what is clearly an angel appears in the sky, floats down to the ground, and then appears in person from behind a wall at the back of the stage. Oh, so angels - male celestial beings in human form with working wings on their backs - occur in ancient Chinese mythology? Interesting...

At one point I have to stifle a laugh as several of these beings float about the projected backdrop on clouds and then zoom away into the distance. And the transition between dancers and back-projection isn't one way. Dancers keep jumping over the wall and apparently flying off into the sky.

Then we have a skilled soprano singer delivering a song with English surtitles with the following line: "The creeds of atheism and evolution bar the path to Heaven". Oh! So far, so ultra-right, and (surprise surprise) it turns out that Epoch Times, Shen Yun's sister organisation, has been an avid supporter of Donald Trump and promotor of QAnon's agenda...

If we were in any doubt about the purpose of the evening it is dispelled by the next piece. The backdrop is now modern China with people enjoying a park. A couple of Falun Gong adherents unfold a banner. Communist Party police arrest them, beat them up. One is killed, possibly for the purpose of organ harvesting. But then the backdrop becomes a shiny golden haven and the persecuted and their families are reunited in heaven. 

I would defend (but not to the death!) the right of every person to hold and practice whatever religious beliefs they wish, as long as they don't disadvantage or otherwise impact others. And the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese authorities has been, and continues to be, utterly savage. But I don't have to like those beliefs, especially when they do lead to negative consequences like the election of Mr Trump.

The performance programme makes a big deal of the fact that the company has a 2016 patent covering the interaction of live stage movements and the back-projected action. PLU-EEZE! I saw UK contemporary dance employing this technique to good effect as early as 2010 and I'm not even sure it was novel then. Is the US Patent Office desperate?

Suffice to say that Shen Yun is spectacular in scope but not something I would recommend to anybody.