Shen Yun is a dance and music show performed in some of the most luxurious theaters in the country.
She has been touring the US since at least 2011, and just released her album National flight schedule for 2025.
Americans often hear about Shen Yun through its mass promotions, billboards, or social media ads, so much so that there Memes and jokes About whether anyone really sees it.
When I first received the letter in 2013, I put it together. “Communist propaganda,” I thought.
When I saw Shen Yun’s online video ad, I thought, “Yes, beautiful dancing and acrobatic costumes, but how did I get targeted?”
It turns out that I was wrong about Shen Yun.
Not only does Shen Yun not support the Chinese Communist Party, he celebrates what came before Mao, and is a nuisance to the current Chinese regime. The performances use free artistic expression to remind us of the losses suffered by the Chinese Communist Party.
To then learn that Shen Yun’s top supporters also supported The Epoch Times, members of an organization called Falun Gong, made more sense.
If you ask a hardcore democracy activist, Falun Gong is no more respected than American Christianity. This helps point the person quickly in the right direction.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice banned in modern China 70 million converts Or more. After I witnessed it 26 years of persecutionFalun Gong practitioners acknowledge a spirit higher than that of the head of the Chinese Communist Party.
The Chinese Communist Party continues to look surreptitiously at Falun Gong, although President Xi’s shifting line of attack appears to be focused on personal matters. Discrediting the founder, Li Hongzhi.
Falun Gong emerged from the ancient Qi Gong tradition within mainland China in the 1990s. To the minds of Falun Gong practitioners, divine life energy, or qi, is available to flow to everyone regardless of party allegiances.
After violent government attacks, members realized that principled character required the birth and growth of a cultural, social, and religious movement that would not adhere to the totalitarian viewpoint of the Chinese Communist Party.
Estimates say at least 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners They have been executed by the Chinese government since the religion was officially banned in 1999. Charges of torture and dismemberment Against practitioners Cases have been taken and highlighted.
Falun Gong’s current headquarters are in upstate New York, although many of its practitioners remain in China. Hongzhi fled China to live in upstate New York, and is respected for linking embodied spiritual experience to an organization that stands against communist expansion.
Just as you can say one thing about the Epoch Times founded by Falun Gong, which is that its positions are principled. One comment you can make about Shen Yun is that her emotional leaps and bounds are mathematically precise.
Target a lawsuit @chinion It raises serious questions about Chinese communist influence here on American soil. pic.twitter.com/p2uEeMywzL
– EpochTV (@EpochTV) December 9, 2024
Training and rehearsals for Shen Yun’s performance season are also taking place at the upstate New York center. The performer’s fee and maintenance of the 427-acre facility are Major expenses From the Shen Yun Foundation.
In other words, this is where your ticket price goes.
But let’s be honest – when TV series, movie rentals, anime, comedies, and reruns of almost everything are available online, only a small percentage of Americans buy tickets to live dance and classical orchestras.
(All this has changed for me, since I got married Classical dancer. Sure, I fell asleep at my first symphony as an adult, with all the harmonies and comfy chairs, but the live classical performances definitely affected me.)
We miss places that resonate with musical instruments and the feet of well-trained dancers seamlessly echoing across hardwood floors.
the Dancing in Shen Yun It is classical Chinese, not “ballet”. However, the style, like all that is truly classic, draws the strings of the provocative potential that the human body, mind and spirit have to offer the heart.
There is perfect balance to the toes, walking gracefully “in the air” and an upward center of gravity during jumps while also somehow maintaining that center of gravity, all in spades of rhythm!
Shen Yun does not envy the West. It is about classic friendship filled with virtues such as faith, divine love and wisdom. The story of the dance show is that these virtues shined brightly over 5,000 years, only to be carelessly halted by China’s ongoing atheistic communist period and religious repression.
There are reports that China banned not only belonging to Falun GongBut all public gatherings are for Qi Gong. Apparently, Chinese people have to practice Qi Gong in an approved housing unit or building.
As China cracks down on spiritual practices in park areas in its megacities, American media critics should—but won’t—Stop making fun of Falun GongJust like the Chinese Communist Party does. Some of the accusations are more serious, with company officials denying the reports in question.
The world famous show is facing allegations of operating as a forced labor institution. The dance company refutes these claims.
— KTNV | Channel 13 News Las Vegas (@KTNV) January 23, 2025
The Bible says that this age will not last forever. In the end, the people will have to glorify the Holy Spirit and sing a new song to the God who created us. The people will be judged whether they build and ring the Liberty Bell or slander and hinder those who aspire.
In China the “official” Bible is He was deeply edited to hate Jesus Christ and glorify only the state, while The Epoch Times stands on the side of the Christian tradition.
Shen Yun seems to be an explicit performance about always wanting the Holy Spirit. By giving a performance based on Falun Gong in countries with Christian audiences without the slightest distortion of the Christian faith, he is performing an honest work: expressing the desire for God in a way that speaks for the people in China.
Even the slogan “5,000 years of civilization reborn” seems open to the gospel.
actually, Hongzhi writes affectionately about the Christian period of history And its importance today. It may seem as if Falun Gong explores Christianity without abandoning some key cultural and lifestyle aspects.
Discerning the correct approach to what is syncretism and what is, rather, living by the Holy Spirit in the lands to which the apostles traveled, was and continues to be part of the rich conversations in the Acts of the Apostles and other epistles. Perhaps a massive spiritual awakening for Christ will extend across the Pacific; Maybe it’s happening now.
Aside from the visual, spatial and audio beauty of the show itself, you may have seen the short interviews with celebrities and politicians that are Shen Yun’s main advertising assets.
Frankly, in the midst of the troubles of freedom abroad and in America, the “declaration” about whether to watch and support a show like Shen Yun comes from the soul. The Gospel of Mark says:
And when they seize you and deliver you up, do not worry in advance what you will say, but say what is given you at that hour; Because it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.
Falun Gong members, like many Christians, are currently facing arrest and complete dependence on the Holy Spirit. They are both encouraged to know:
We do not know how to pray properly, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings beyond words. He who searches hearts knows what the soul’s concern is.
(Romans 8:26-27)
And understanding:
“For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to lay upon you any greater burden than these necessary things
(Acts 15:28)
Shen Yun’s performance can be searched by city, state or zip code via Website.