编者按：2月25日，英国《电讯报》发表署名文章，对法轮功的所谓“神韵”演出发表公开批评，当日英主流媒体《卫报》也同时刊发文章，指出“神韵”是“怪异的宣传与光怪陆离的组合”。原文编译如下：
【英国《卫报》2008年2月25日，作者：Judith Mackrell】神韵在伦敦演出时间的选择可谓别有用心。在北京2008年奥运会的准备阶段，英国各地场馆正在用举办中国现代艺术展的形式展示着当代中国。与之针锋相对，在纽约组建的以流亡中国艺术家为主组成的神韵演出团，也在这里举办集传统舞蹈、滑稽剧和音乐于一体的晚会。在晚会上，长期流亡海外的男高音满怀思乡情，但他们所展示的却不是当代中国，而是过去的中国，或者说是中国应有的样子。
'Something creepy' about Falun Gong performers
By: Judith Mackrell
The timing of Shen Yun's appearance in London could not be more interesting. In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, venues around Britain are hosting China Now, a showcase for the country's contemporary art. In marked contrast, Shen Yun is a programme of traditional dance, mime and music, performed by exiled Chinese artists based in New York. The tenor of this production is deeply nostalgic and deeply ex-pat. Not China Now, but China Past, or China As It Ought to Be.
We are introduced to the material through comperes Mei Zhou and Leeshai Lemish, who deliver bright, smiling links between the show's 20 items. Useful details are supplied concerning narrative sources and ethnic style, but what fundamentally emerges from this joint show-and-tell is the production's mission to stage a protest against China's communist regime.
The majority of the cast (members of the Divine Arts organisation) turn out to be practitioners of the oppressed spiritual movement Falun Gong. As the comperes make clear, not only are most of the numbers slanted to embody the movement's creed (truthfulness, compassion, tolerance), but some of them explicitly dramatise scenes from its struggles within mainland China, with background images magically depicting the swelling multitudes of Falun Gong followers and choreographed conflicts showing heroic battles with brutal party goons.
Even if you are sympathetic to the Falun Gong cause, there is something creepy about the evangelical tone with which this is delivered. It is also made worse by the fact that the show's visual style is like a Disney production, with the cast dressed in gaudy, glittery updates of traditional costumes backed by scenes of soft-focus landscape created by computer animation.
There are some authentic pleasures to be seen on stage fierce demonstrations of drumming; a haunting Chinese violin solo; choreographed set pieces in which the sinuous calligraphy of the dancers' bodies is elaborated with rippling silks and fans. But too much of it goes against the troupe's stated commitment to preserve the heritage of classical China.
One tableau - Descent of the Celestial Kings - includes a pair of improbably western-looking angels with tinsel halos and wings. Another - The Risen Lotus Flower - shows Falun Gong prisoners being tortured but who are illuminated by a spiritual light that pirouettes around them like a digital Tinkerbell. It is all too weird a mix of propaganda and bling.
(The Guardian, Monday February 25, 2008)