Shen Yun ‘The best I’ve ever seen,’ Says Former MP and Acclaimed Rights Defender

OTTAWA—Shen Yun Performing Arts staged the second of five shows at the NAC, a presentation that author, human rights defender, and former MP David Kilgour has enjoyed year after year.

Mr. Kilgour has been coming to see Shen Yun for the past six years and remembers the first year it came to Ottawa for a single show.

“The place was jammed and they had to have more shows. It’s catching on… it’s becoming a major part of the cultural scene in Ottawa.”

After watching Shen Yun’s new 2012 show, Mr. Kilgour said, “The dancing was over the top, it was so good and the costumes were the best I’ve ever seen. The singing was beautiful.

 “Spiritually it hits you … It touches your senses. It touches your spirit. It touches your soul. It touches your heart.

“In short, it’s the best show that I’ve seen and I can hardly wait until next year.”

He said everybody he heard leaving the show around him was saying the same thing.

“It was the best show they’ve seen,” repeated Kilgour.

He especially praised Shen Yun’s female dancers, describing their performance as “phenomenal.”

“They’re so precise. Nobody’s out of step. I think it’s the best I’ve ever seen,” he said, adding that the costumes were “out of this world.”

Good versus Evil

Kilgour said he particularly enjoyed the show’s theme of good and evil.

“The good people win and the bad people lose. I love the way the bad people are presented with their black and their sticks. It’s really well done,” he said, “History has had a fight in every country with those issues.”

A committed human rights and democracy advocate, Mr. Kilgour has traveled the world and lent his voice to causes from oppression in Vietnam to the lack of protection for whistle-blowers in Canada.

He served as Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific). Since then he’s also worked on behalf of the Ashraf in Iraq, democracy in Vietnam, human rights in Africa and Asia, and dozens of other causes.

In 2009, Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas won the Human Rights Award from the German-based International Society for Human Rights for their work to expose organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

“A Whole Different Dimension of China”

On this night, Kilgour said Shen Yun presented true traditional Chinese culture and history that most non-Chinese wouldn’t normally be exposed to.

“They get a real sense of the real culture we never see when we go to China,” he said.

“You get a whole different dimension of China. That’s what’s unique about it. You see China as it could be, as it should be, as I think it will be. Certainly not as it is now.

“Go and see it. Your family should see it, your parents, your children. It’s a show for everybody. I was with my two daughters and my wife Laura and I think we all enjoyed it immensely … It’s a show for everybody.

“The people who designed it had that in mind.”