The New York Times: Over the past decade, the dance group Shen Yun Performing Arts has made money at a staggering rate.
The group had $60 million in 2015.
It had $144 million by 2019.
And by the end of last year, tax records show, it had more than a quarter of a billion dollars, stockpiling wealth at a pace that would be extraordinary for any company, let alone a nonprofit dance group from Orange County, N.Y.
7 comments:
Before reading this article, I assumed that it meant religious fervor of the audience, as in using religion as a tool to get people into the theater. I assumed it was a religious show and that was how they tapped into that market. I was not expecting them to instead use religion as a tool to not only recruit workers, but recruit them to for free and convince them that working for the dance company and follow this guy's 'teachings' was the path to 'godhood.' I was hopeful for a bit, like "oh wow, this dance company seems very financially successful, I wonder how they made their fortune! they must have some great business practices and have figured the whole industry out! isn't that great!" But no, they're a cult. I saw SO many billboards for this dance company when I visited NYC early 2024. I bet they can spend a LOT of advertising. I wonder where that cult started, did it start because of this company as someone's idea to make them big bucks? OR was it existent before?
I initially chose this article as I thought it would help gain insight into how a dance performance group that I have seen several billboards for in many different cities has become so successful, I did not realize that what the group was doing was highly unethical and manipulative to all that are involved in this process. It made me wonder about at what point will venues begin turning away Shen Yun and their satellite companies based off of their knowledge of their business practices and if venues would even be incentivized to do so. Ultimately, reading about the cult-like following of Mr. Li demonstrates that sinister plots to take advantage of large amounts of people are all around us, and that we as consumers ought to be more and more careful about what we chose to consume as well as how we discuss these kinds of productions once finding out this information. I would not be surprised and even hope that Shen Yun’s public reputation beings to diminish if it means that their workers and the workers of the satellite companies receive better treatment.
I have not heard about shen yun in a while, i remember around 2 years ago hearing people talk about how culty the producers and company behind it were. I never saw one of their shows but have seen constant ads and t-shirts for them in the past years. Shen Yun also became a bit of a meme because of their cult. I remember one year I met two different people who were wearing t-shirts that said: “I lost my virginity at Shen Yun” which is a bit funny but also terribly stupid. Maybe a bit clever. But my opinions aside, I did not think these performances were still happening. I think its been well over time to stop paying attention to Shen Yun and honestly just boycott. People shouldn't give their money to see the performances because they are exploiting people. There should also be lawsuits put against them, and I'm shocked they've dodged this. As a society we should simply just try to make them go bankrupt.
I was expecting this to be a rather interesting article about a religion based dance group however overall it seems to practically be a cult. I just do not understand how the Li and the organization has yet to be shut down. They are clearly doing something to manipulate their viewers and supporters into giving them money or free labor to support the group. This group almost reminds me of the Church of Scientology in a way in which people get hooked in and give everything to the group with the promise of otherworldly benefits. People that were formerly involved have openly admitted to money laundering yet still nothing has been done. It's so unfortunate that people believe in Li so blindly as to not seek out medical advice because he says so. I hope action is taken against the organization before more lives are ruined as a result of his manipulation.
Probably some of my earliest memories include seeing Shen Yun billboards around my town. I cannot remember the Shen Yun billboards ever having anything else on them, and it feels like there are almost year-round performances of the show in the San Francisco area. It has always been the same poster art with the same image with the same tagline on it for basically forever. I’ve never been to a performance, and for a while I never knew what the deal with it was besides that it seemed a little odd, but over the past couple of years, I’ve found myself hearing a lot more about Falun Gong, the connection with Epoch Times, and just the entire cult situation. The fact that a cult operates the performance is not a secret, but not many people are aware of that, and so it’s absolutely fascinating that they are able to so publicly advertise themselves, and still generate so much money without anybody really noticing, which only furthers their reach, power, etc. I think that a lot of fault in this situation (aside from cult leaders, obviously) lies within the performance venues that still allow Shen Yun to perform, even though a lot of the cult stuff has been exposed before. It looks like this article is part of a really in-depth investigation by the NY Times, and I hope that publicity about the cult and it’s treatment of its followers/performers coming from such a big-name newspaper alerts more venues about what they’re allowing to happen right in front of them.
“Religious productions” are certainly a major segment of the theatrical industry in America, but I usually think of the term in reference to Christianity—anything from a new nice lighting system in a local church to all-out televised megachurches. Shen Yun is probably one of the most nefarious players in this space. I’ve been aware of Shen Yun since I was a kid in Chinese dance, where I would confuse it with my dance organization because the advertising was in such a similar style, but I was only vaguely aware of its actual nature as a “cult” before reading this article. I found many parts of this piece really heartbreaking to read—from how Shen Yun exploited governmental efforts during the pandemic to sap resources being provided to struggling arts institutions by funneling money into sattelite organizations, to how its philosophy directly led to a woman’s death by persuading her not to seek medical attention when her health was rapidly failing.
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