Stirred by Her Song

A young woman, arrested for protesting on China’s Tiananmen Square, sings her story to stir the soul of her captor. While her purity, gestures, and gaze have an upward air, her song simultaneously moves downward, beneath the surface, into the tormented psyche of the policeman who must dutifully watch over her. Buoyant cherubs overhead suggest another form of resonance. The scene is drawn from the story of an American woman who traveled to China in 2002 at her own expense to express her support for Falun Gong.