The Religious Group Behind Shen Yun: Why Do Some Call Falun Gong A Cult?
NEW YORK — You’ve seen the ads inside train cars, on television and splashed across massive billboards for years. They feature performers posing with pastel-colored ribbons while doing elaborate moves. You might have even considered buying a ticket to see this dance troupe as they move from one to city to the next.
So who — and what — is Shen Yun?
Shen Yun, which translates as “Divine Performing Arts,” is a performing arts company known for its lavish productions featuring classical Chinese dance, music and storytelling.
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Based in New York and established in 2006 by practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong, Shen Yun seeks to revive and showcase traditional Chinese culture, which its founders believe has been largely lost or suppressed under communist rule in China.
At the heart of Shen Yun's performances is Chinese dance, an expressive form with roots dating back some 5,000 years. The company's dancers are trained in this centuries-old style — combining intricate movements, flowing gestures and even acrobatic feats — to tell stories from Chinese history. Each performance typically consists of a series of vignettes that explore a variety of themes.
Shen Yun is a performing arts company dedicated to reviving traditional Chinese culture. While its productions often incorporate themes with spiritual or religious significance, particularly influenced by the spiritual discipline Falun Gong, Shen Yun's primary focus, according to their marketing materials, has been to celebrate the beauty of China’s past. Whether one sees it as primarily an artistic endeavor or a platform for cultural and spiritual expression depends on interpretation.
In addition to dance, Shen Yun features live orchestral music blending traditional Chinese instruments with Western ones, as well as colorful costumes, animated backdrops and even digital projection technology. The result is a visually stunning theatrical experience.
While Shen Yun's primary goal is to celebrate and promote traditional Chinese culture (as the ads say), its performances also incorporate themes with spiritual and religious significance. This reflects the influence of Falun Gong — a spiritual discipline rooted in ancient Chinese traditions — and its emphasis on moral character development, meditation and exercises for improving one’s health.
The traveling dance company has received rave reviews for years. A 2008 Chicago Tribune review described it as “women flow like water in spectacle.” The show is currently performing in New York at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.
Wikipedia Commons photo
What is Falun Gong?
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, was introduced to the public in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi. It gained widespread popularity in the ‘90s before facing severe persecution by the Chinese communist government, which views it as a threat to its authority.
Despite the repression, Falun Gong has continued to spread worldwide, with millions of practitioners in some 70 countries. Some critics, most notably the Chinese government, have even branded it a cult.
A memo from the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China noted the following about Shen Yun: “This organization preaches heretical fallacies that are anti-humanity and anti-science, and exercises extreme mental manipulation on followers. It is a cult that seriously harms the society and violates human rights, and is a cancer in the body of the modern and civilized society.”
But Shen Yun doesn’t denying its ties with Falun Dafa. In fact, it openly admits there’s a connection.
Falun Gong emerged from qigong (Chinese for “discipline of the vital breath”), a mix of traditional medical and self-cultivation practices developed in the early 1950s by members of the Chinese medical establishment as part of an effort to promote traditional Chinese medicine in modern China. Qigong was available in some Chinese clinics in the 1950s and early ’60s but was banned during the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s.
Li, who moved to the United States in 1995, followed the familiar path of other charismatic qigong leaders, giving dozens of high-profile talks and building a large organization between 1992 and 1995. Estimates of the number of Falun Gong’s adherents during that period vary between two million to 60 million worldwide.
One of the central tenets of Falun Gong is the belief in truthfulness, compassion and forbearance as universal principles guiding human behavior. These values are often reflected in Shen Yun's performances, which frequently depict stories of courage, perseverance and the triumph of good over evil. In addition, some of the dances and musical compositions featured in Shen Yun's repertoire are inspired by Falun Gong teachings and themes, such as the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment and the quest for inner harmony.
While Shen Yun's artistic director, performers and many audience members are Falun Gong practitioners, the company emphasizes that its productions are non-religious and appeal to all people. The performances, the group has said, are intended to entertain, educate and inspire rather than promote any specific faith or ideology.
At the same time, the spiritual underpinnings of Falun Gong are undeniably present in Shen Yun's work, and the company's founders have stated that they hope their performances will help to raise awareness about the persecution of Falun Gong in China and promote religious freedom and human rights.
“To try to sort out the truth about Shen Yun is to stand between two forces, both buffeting you with propaganda,” wrote Nicholas Hune-Brown in a 2017 review for The Guardian, “and figure out which way to lean.”
Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.