When Simone Biles warmed up for the preliminaries in the Paris Olympic Games, she injured her calf and limped, at times crawled, off the deck. But because she is Simone Biles, the best athlete in the history of gymnastics, she fought through the pain, and two weeks later she returned with three gold and one silver medal to the United States. Had she decided to whine or give in to the pain, she would have endured less excruciating pain, but probably also won fewer medals.
Everyone knows how tough ballet training is: hours and hours of repeating the same body movements. The Russian ballet school is infamous for its disciplined, pain-defying dancers, and the same is probably also true for other ballet schools.
When it comes to training the physical body for competitive sports or performing arts, there is no shortcut; there is no way to become world-class without hitting a wall of pain. That’s the reason why we admire those dancers, because they train beyond what we could do.
Every dancer can quit, of course, if they want to, but because they are passionate about dance and exceeding the limits, they stay.
Similar observations are true for the legendary Navy SEAL training. There is a bell in the training facility. Every candidate can break the training at any time, ring the bell, and quit. Nobody will hold him back. But those who stay and endure the training until the end will be proud to have made it through the toughest hardships. The difficulties and suffering endured during the training were not for tasteless entertainment; it was training that prepared the SEALs for the most challenging tasks.
When it comes to Shen Yun, a celebrated performing arts company located in New York that showcases China as it existed before communism, one might be tempted to say that the performers go through a “SEAL training of the performing arts.” The demanding training equips the performers with endurance and prepares them to perform on stages around the world.
The New York Times published an article that gave a platform to roughly 25 former Shen Yun artists. The article appears to allow some of those former artists to vent their anger or frustration from year-long experiences. The artists who were interviewed mainly talked about what they had to endure, and the New York Times reporters created the impression that it was bad. However, when a gymnastics coach says, “Get back up on the deck!” or a ballet teacher yells, “Get up and keep dancing!” or a drill sergeant yells, “Get up and run!” we as a society seem to accept it, and newspapers would not write a deprecating hit piece about it. So why did The New York Times publish a 5,000-word article about a New York-based dance company?
The article made us curious. While being bullied in the workplace is certainly not right, a fair judgment would suggest hearing from both sides. What has led to the unfortunate experience that the 25 performers have apparently encountered? Unfortunately, readers are left with that question.
Another aspect comes to mind: It is simply poor journalism to only interview people from one side of the story, especially if it only includes disappointed, former employees and neither “happy-former” nor current employees. We would have liked to hear more from them as well.
Biased reporting, like a biased science experiment, should make one nervous. Can we get an objective picture of the issue, or is someone trying to manipulate the results? Disclosing a conflict of interest is a measure to allow readers of scientific articles to assess a bias. Does the New York Times have any conflicts of interest linked to the Chinese regime or the Chinese Communist Party? It would be an interesting question, but we might never know.
The American Ballet Theatre, according to its website, is considered one of the greatest dance companies. It performs in front of 300,000 people annually. Shen Yun performs in front of a million people annually. This is not meant to be a competitive comparison between two dance companies, yet it illustrates the accomplishments that Shen Yun achieves year after year. Shen Yun performers can achieve that because they undergo a challenging training program. If we love to watch Simone Biles win gold, love to watch American ballet, and are impressed with the accomplishments of Navy SEALs, then why should Shen Yun be criticized for the same achievements and the same demanding training? This is simply how performing artists are trained. Shen Yun is simply a dance performing arts company.
The New York Times article appears to paint a grim picture of Shen Yun. Let’s compare. Every day, employees are laid off in the United States. If The New York Times put the same effort into finding employees from any of those big companies who were laid off under difficult circumstances, we are convinced they could write a hit piece about many companies. Sometimes, the work environment is okay for one employee, but not okay for the other one. Everyone should find a place where he or she feels comfortable and part of the team.
However, if reporting about emotional abuse in the workplace is the new “hot topic,” maybe go into the headquarters of each of the Fortune 500 companies. It will be an eye-opening experience. Why would the authors suggest that alleged incidents of emotional abuse only occur in one company? How would The New York Times react if investigative journalists looked into emotional abuse among New York Times staff? “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
The main point is that the workplace is a difficult environment. And that is probably true for almost all workplaces. (Readers might stop reading for a second and reflect on whether everything is rosy at their own workplace?) Let’s put things into perspective and get to some numbers.
Assuming that Shen Yun, with eight dance companies over its 18 years of history, had 1,000 performers and other staff. Then, the 25 former artists presented in the New York Times article reflect about 2.5 percent of the Shen Yun workforce. They were laid off or left on their own. Matthew Zane on Zippia writes that “40 percent of Americans have been fired from a job” during their lifetime. He continues, “The percentage of people fired in the arts, entertainment, and recreation industry in June 2022 was 2.8 percent, the highest of any workers.” So, Shen Yun’s 2.5 percent appears to be within that range. Average. Why then would the New York Times write about an average occurrence?
So, finally, we want to say two things: Firstly, we feel sorry for anyone who experiences a bad workplace environment, and would encourage everyone to make a healthy decision and find an environment that works better for them. Secondly, can the New York Times find its way back to sound, traditional journalism? Being the mouthpiece of who-knows-whom might bring short-lived praise from who-knows-whom, but it does not contribute to reporting truthfully about occurrences in U.S. society.