Shen Yun Performing Arts () is a nonprofit performing arts and entertainment company based in the United States that produces performances of dance and symphonic music. It is operated by the new religious movement Falun Gong, founded in 2006 and led by Li Hongzhi. Shen Yun is composed of eight large performing ensembles, with a total of approximately 480 performers. Shen Yun has performed in front of millions and has toured all over the world.
The company is promoted by The Epoch Times, a far-right media outlet affiliated with Falun Gong. In 2019, an NBC News assessment concluded that the Epoch Media Group and Shen Yun "make up the outreach effort of Falun Gong". Shen Yun shares Falun Gong's opposition to communism and presents itself as an organization that strives to revive traditional Chinese culture, which it claims the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sought to destroy. Experts have described Shen Yun as participating in a broader competition between Falun Gong and the Chinese government over who can best represent "authentic" Chinese culture. The Chinese government has attempted to cancel its performances abroad by pressuring theaters and governments. Marketed as "China Before Communism," each Shen Yun performance consists of approximately 20 independent vignettes—primarily dance, along with an instrumental piece and two vocal performances. Shen Yun performances incorporate Falun Gong teachings, including promotion of the Dafa, or "Great Way", and religious beliefs concerning the salvation of humanity. The performance also promote negative views of evolution and atheism.
Falun Gong adherents pay to rent the performance venue, promote the show, and sell tickets. After expenses are covered through ticket sales, proceeds go to Shen Yun. The finances of Shen Yun and Falun Gong appear to be linked, with technically separate corporations sharing funds, executives, and the same mission. Its shows are heavily promoted through advertising blitz campaigns in local markets.
The group's labor practices and beliefs have been controversial, including allegations that vulnerable minors were subjected to forced child labor, emotional abuse and manipulation, financial coercion, and that performers were discouraged from seeking medical treatment for injuries on religious grounds.
History
In 2006, a group of expatriate Falun Gong practitioners living in North America founded Shen Yun in New York. The stated purpose of the company was to revive Chinese culture and traditions from the time before the Chinese Communist Revolution. In a journal article analyzing Falun Gong’s geopolitics, scholar Weihsuan Lin wrote: "Shen Yun’s ‘reviving five thousand years of civilization’ attempts to question and separate the entanglement between the Party and the State; it enacts, globally, an alternative geopolitical discourse in which a culturally rich and prosperous China without the CCP existed in the past and is coming again in the near future."
In 2007, the company conducted its first tour with 90 dancers, musicians, soloists, and production staff.Adriana Rambay Fernandez, Dancing around the world , Hudson Reporter, 22 January 2012. Early shows were titled "Chinese Spectacular", "Holiday Wonders", "Chinese New Year Splendor", and "Divine Performing Arts", but now the company performs exclusively under the name "Shen Yun". By 2009, Shen Yun had developed three full companies and orchestras that toured the world simultaneously. By the end of the 2010 season, approximately one million people had seen the troupes perform.
Shen Yun, the media organization The Epoch Times, and a variety of other organizations operate as extensions of Falun Gong. Los Angeles–based investigative reporter Samuel Braslow described Shen Yun's background in March 2020: "Both Shen Yun and Epoch Times are funded and operated by members of Falun Gong, a controversial spiritual group that was banned by China's government in 1999[...] Falun Gong melds traditional Taoist principles with occasionally bizarre pronouncements from its Chinese-born founder and leader, Li Hongzhi. Among other pronouncements, Li has claimed that aliens started invading human minds in the beginning of the 20th century, leading to mass corruption and the invention of computers. He has also denounced feminism and homosexuality and claimed he can walk through walls and levitate. But the central tenet of the group's wide-ranging belief system is its fierce opposition to communism. In 2000, Li founded Epoch Times to disseminate Falun Gong talking points to American readers. Six years later he launched Shen Yun as another vehicle to promote his teachings to mainstream Western audiences. Over the years Shen Yun and Epoch Times, while nominally separate organizations, have operated in tandem in Falun Gong's ongoing PR campaign against the Chinese government, taking directions from Li." Editor Chris Jennewein of MyNewsLA wrote that Los Angeles Magazine was sued for defamation in May 2020 by the Epoch Times, referring to Braslow's news report. Los Angeles Magazine pulled the piece from their website in July, as ordered by federal judge George H. Wu, and published a retraction notice in the September 2020 issue of the magazine.
Shen Yun Performing Arts, founded in New York in 2006 by Falun Gong practitioners, tours internationally with performances depicting traditional Chinese culture. The company has reported security incidents, including threats and vandalism, which it attributes to actors linked to the Chinese Communist Party, in the context of China’s longstanding restrictions on Falun Gong since 1999.
Marketing Shen Yun promotes itself as "a presentation of traditional Chinese culture as it once was". It is heavily promoted in major cities with commercials, billboards, and brochures displayed in streets and in businesses, as well as in television and radio profiles. According to Jia Tolentino of The New Yorker, "The ads have to be both ubiquitous and devoid of content so that they can convince more than a million people to pay good money to watch what is, essentially, religious-political propaganda—or, more generously, an extremely elaborate commercial for Falun Dafa’s spiritual teachings and its plight vis-à-vis the Chinese Communist regime." Shen Yun's advertizing blitz campaigns have inspired several internet memes. In 2021, the troupe began billing its shows as "China Before Communism".
A 2019 article in The New Yorker noted that a Shen Yun host claimed that both ballet and gymnastics had actually originated from Classical chinese dance and that their performers were showing a tradition that was thousands of years old. However, Emily Wilcox, a professor of Chinese studies at the University of Michigan, disputed these claims and explained that Chinese classical dance is a relatively a new art form that originated in China in the 1950s and that she had never heard of ballet and gymnastics being derived from it.
Shen Yun performances are often presented or sponsored by regional Falun Gong groups, which has been banned by the Chinese government. Some audience members have objected to the show's promotion strategy, which does not note the religious- and political-themed content of the performance. Jim Kershner of The Spokesman-Review reported that while the show contained "a religious-political message", "[t]he vast majority of the show, however, has no overt message. It is dedicated mainly to keeping alive the traditional forms of Chinese music and dance that were suppressed during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and in subsequent decades." Chicago Tribune’s Gisela Orozco also noted that Shen Yun offered, "in a few passages, critical allusions to the communism that governs its country of origin, but without abounding on the subject."
Content
Dance Large-scale group dance is at the center of Shen Yun productions. Each touring company consists of about 40 male and female dancers, who mainly perform modern version inspired by classical Chinese dances, making extensive use of acrobatic and tumbling techniques, forms and postures.
Shen Yun's repertoire draws on stories from Chinese history and legends, such as the legend of Mulan, Journey to the West and Outlaws of the Marsh. It also depicts "the story of Falun Gong today". During the 2010 production, at least two of the 16 scenes depicted "persecution and murder of Falun Gong practitioners" in contemporary China, including the beating of a young mother to death, and the jailing of a Falun Gong protester. In addition to classical Han Chinese dance, Shen Yun also includes elements of Yi, Miao, Tibetan and Mongolian dance.
Shen Yun performs three core elements of classical Chinese dance: bearing (emotion, cultural and ethnic flavor), form (expressive movements and postures), and technical skill (physical techniques of jumping, flipping, and leaping). Shen Yun choreographer Vina Lee has stated that some of the distinct Chinese bearing () has been "lost in the process" since the cultural changes of the Chinese Communist Revolution.
Music Shen Yun dances are accompanied by Chinese instruments: the , and a variety of Chinese percussion instruments. A full Western orchestra leads the melodies.Elina Shatkin. Vina leads Divine Performing Arts' Chinese New Year Spectacular . Los Angeles Times. 1 January 2009. There are solo performances featuring Chinese instruments such as the in between dances. Interspersed between dance sequences, other than the performances, are operatic singers performing songs which sometimes invoke spiritual or religious themes, including references to the Falun Gong faith. A performance in 2007, for instance, included a reference to the Chakravartin, a figure in Buddhism who turns the wheel of Dharma.Joel Markowitz, 'January Pleasures' , DC Theatre Scene, 28 January 2007.
The music for Shen Yun was composed by Jing Xian and Junyi Tan. Three of Shen Yun's performers—flutist Ningfang Chen, erhuist Mei Xuan and tenor Guan Guimin—were recipients of the Chinese Ministry of Culture's "National First Class Performer" awards. Prior to joining Shen Yun, Guan Guimin was well known in China for his work on soundtracks for more than 50 movies and television shows. Other notable performers include soloist Xiaochun Qi.Robert Baxter, "New Year show, old traditions preserve Chinese culture," Courier Post, 30 December 2007.
Costume and backdrops
Shen Yun's dancers perform wearing intricate costumes, often accompanied by a variety of props. Some costumes are intended to imitate the dress of various ethnicities, while others depict ancient Chinese court dancers, soldiers, or characters from classic stories. Props include colorful handkerchiefs, drums, fans, chopsticks, or silk scarves.Paula Citron. A dazzling show with a clear message. The Globe and Mail: Arts. 22 January 2008.
Each Shen Yun piece is set against a digitally projected backdrop, usually depicting landscapes such as Mongolian grasslands, imperial courts, ancient villages, temples, or mountains.Meredith Galante. A Day In The Life Of A Professional Dancer In A Traditional Chinese Company . Business Insider. 11 January 2012. Some backdrops contain moving elements, such as digital versions of the dancers, that integrate with the performance.
Reviews