We've been hoodwinked!

For Valentines Day, I gave Tom two tickets to see the Divine Performing Arts at Grady Gammage on 3/28/09. Didn't know much about it except it looked like Chinese dancing, acrobatics and singing. For the most part it was very nice. It was really Chinese ballet accompanied by a full orchestra, some singing and one solo on a Chinese instrument which is akin to the violin. The costumes were gorgeous and basically it was a nice experience until the performers started singing and tranlating what they were singing on the big screen behind them. Then, I had the uncomfortable feeling that this was not really what it seemed. It all had something to do with Falun Dafa which is some kind of Chinese spiritual expression. It seems fairly harmless and maybe even espouses a good cause (opposition to the Chinese goverment's oppression of its people) but there are several references to it being a cult. I don't know enough about it one way or another to decide if its good or bad but it doesn't matter too much when I paid good money for some entertainment that I received in addition to propaganda that I did not pay for. That kind of pisses me off and resulted in marring the show.