The Dark Side of Shen Yun

Good morning. It’s Monday. We’ll look at findings from The Times’s investigation of the Shen Yun dance troupe. We’ll also see what’s in the waters off New York through the eyes of divers who look for shipwrecks and treasure.

Shen Yun performers train at Dragon Springs, Falun Gong’s headquarters in upstate New York.Credit…The New York Times

The dance group Shen Yun sends troupes of Chinese dancers swirling in colorful costumes to cities like New York, Paris, Toronto and Taipei. Shen Yun’s mission is more than entertainment: The shows amplify the anti-Communist message of Falun Gong, a religious movement that the Chinese Communist Party has tried to stamp out. Shen Yun has been led in exile by Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi, from a 400-acre compound in upstate New York, where many of the performers live and train.

What Shen Yun audiences may not have realized was that offstage the performers paid a price in untreated injuries and emotional abuse. A New York Times investigation found that Shen Yun routinely discouraged them from seeking medical care and demanded obedience to rigid schedules. I asked Nicole Hong, who with Michael Rothfeld interviewed 25 former Shen Yun performers and instructors and reviewed hundreds of pages of records, about their findings.

What is the atmosphere like at the Shen Yun compound in upstate New York? Are the performers under a lot of pressure?

Our reporting showed that it was a controlling atmosphere and that the young student performers were subject to a long list of rules. They were limited in the books they could read, the music they could listen to and the news outlets they could access. They needed special permission to leave the compound and often saw their families only once a year.