SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic—When the curtain opened for Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Eduardo Brito National Theater, Pelegrin Castillo felt it carried “a very necessary message for this world so besieged by totalitarianisms of different signs.”
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts was founded in 2006 by a group of leading Chinese artists who had fled the persecution of China’s ruling communist party. Following the regime’s violent takeover in 1949, Chinese traditional culture underwent a period of mass destruction.
A former legislator and congressman, and president of the National Progressive Force, Mr. Castillo said he has always admired the Chinese people. “I have followed their culture,” he said. …