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The dance group has exploited its young performers while amassing huge wealth for the Falun Gong religious movement — and getting a publicity boost from The Epoch Times.
Dec. 30, 2024, 1:57 p.m. ET
Over the past year, The New York Times has investigated the inner workings of the dance group Shen Yun, known for its instantly recognizable posters and billboards.
Shen Yun performs hundreds of shows worldwide during its annual tour, generating tens of millions of dollars in ticket sales and packing prestigious venues from Washington to Paris.
Its current five-month tour kicked off in December. The group is set to perform at Lincoln Center in New York starting March 26.
Shen Yun is run by Falun Gong, a religious group that has been banned in China and persecuted by the Chinese government for nearly three decades. The two-hour performance includes dance pieces that are intended to spread the message of Falun Gong and its living founder, Li Hongzhi, to a mass audience.
But in a series of articles, The Times has found that Shen Yun has exploited its young performers, used religious fealty to command free labor, taken money in ways that may have crossed legal and ethical lines and benefited from previously undisclosed links to a prominent news outlet, The Epoch Times.
The Times reviewed thousands of pages of tax documents, court filings and other records and interviewed more than 150 people for the articles.
