Chinese dance spectacle 'Shen Yun' revives tradition

An image of a dancer balancing on the words "China Before Communism" looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signalling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance.

The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicoloured visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an internet meme in recent years.

Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to "persistent persecution" in China, according to a January 2024 European Parliament resolution.

Shen Yun aims to "revive 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture", which the group says Beijing has nearly succeeded in destroying.

China banned Falun Gong, which it calls an "evil cult", in 1999 after 10,000 members peacefully demonstrated outside a government building in Beijing.

But the movement has found a global audience, performing Shen Yun in cities across the world every year and generating revenues of $46 million in 2022 alone, according to the ProPublica investigative news site.

'Greater forces at work'

In front of some 2,000 spectators in the French city of Tours, a soprano sings to a divine power, castigating "modern thoughts" that are "corrupting" humanity.

The audience then watches as Chinese police chase peaceful demonstrators before one of the officers has a change of heart, becoming "aware that greater forces may be at work", according to the programme.

The demonstrators portrayed in the scene are members of Falun Gong - but adverts for the performance do not spell this out.

"Shen Yun is obviously a facade to promote Li Hongzhi's ideas and recruit new members," said Marc Lebranchu, a researcher in traditional Chinese practices at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris.

Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, is a controversial figure who fled China in 1998, seeking political asylum.

In a 1991 Time magazine interview, Hongzhi portrayed himself as the saviour of humanity and claimed aliens were trying to replace humans.

However, Unadfi spokesperson Pascale Duval said no similar accusations have been levelled in France "for at least five or six years".

The group has also been criticised for its proximity to the ultra-conservative movement in the United States.

Between 2018 and 2019 a Falun Gong-affiliated media outlet called The Epoch Times paid more than $1.5 million for around 11,000 pro-Trump ads on Facebook over a six-month period, some of which peddled conspiracy theories, according to NBC News.