Over 1,500 Shen Yun Performers and Family Members Call for Investigation of CCP Influence Targeting the Arts Group

The CCP in recent years has stepped up its sabotage campaign against the performing arts company, representatives said at a Lincoln Center press conference.

Shen Yun MC Leeshai Lemish speaks at a press conference highlighting the Chinese Communist Party's transnational repression activities targeting the company, at Lincoln Center in New York City on March 26, 2025.Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

NEW YORK CITY—More than 1,500 artists and their family members have signed a petition calling on the United States to investigate Beijing’s weaponization of American institutions against their company and their community.

The petition was launched in December 2024 in the wake of rising hate narratives against New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts. Many who signed said they abhorred what they considered an attack on their values, work, and way of life.

The “gross distortions and false narratives” were “echoing through mainstream media,” bolstered in part by lawfare and “malicious calls for government inquiries,” they wrote in the petition, which was presented during a press conference at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, several hours before Shen Yun’s opening performance at the venue.

“We are concerned about the beloved American company that brings hope and joy to millions. We are concerned about Beijing’s ability to manipulate and control our society,” they said.

The petition calls for a Justice Department investigation into the “foreign malign influence campaign” and to bring the actors behind it to justice. It also asks Congress and the president to protect U.S. companies from Chinese influence operations. Lastly, it calls on media outlets “to act responsibly,” disclose any ties that their sources have to Beijing, and pursue “true objectivity.”

Shen Yun was started by practitioners of Falun Gong, a faith group brutally persecuted by the Chinese regime since 1999, after the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) grew fearful of its popularity.

In its annual tour around the globe, Shen Yun performs hundreds of Chinese classical dance and music shows, drawing out traditional values through story-based dances and highlighting human rights abuses in present-day China—all while weathering disruptive efforts from Chinese diplomats and sabotage from CCP-backed agents.

A 2024 report by the Falun Dafa Information Center documented more than 130 sabotage attempts targeting Shen Yun since its founding in 2006.

Escalation

Over the past year, the campaign against Shen Yun has intensified, with dozens of bomb and death threats targeting theaters where the company performs as well as its training facilities in upstate New York. Threats have even been made against U.S. lawmakers who express support for the company or for Falun Gong.

One of the more recent bomb threats forced the evacuation of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington for hours on the day of Shen Yun’s opening show there.

Shen Yun emcee Leeshai Lemish, at the New York City press conference, displayed a graph showing a marked uptick in bomb threats in recent months that coincides with rising online hate narratives and allegations.

Since August last year, The New York Times has published more than 10 articles attacking Shen Yun and Falun Gong, ignoring substantial amounts of information that would have undermined the articles’ premises.

The articles have been boosted on social media platform X by thousands of inauthentic accounts, which an Epoch Times investigation found were likely linked to China. Thousands of such accounts were taken down by X as a result of the investigation.

The New York Times’ reporting missed a critical part of Shen Yun’s story, Lemish said.

“We have families being persecuted in China. We have performers who have lost parents to persecution in China,” he said. “We have performers who could not go see their parents for the last time, missed their kids’ weddings.”

By reenacting persecution scenes on stage, he said, the performers try to “give voice to the people in China who have no voice.”

Piotr Huang, Shen Yun principal dancer, speaks at a press conference highlighting the Chinese Communist Party's transnational repression activities targeting the company at Lincoln Center in New York City on March 26, 2025. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Shen Yun performers expressed shock at the allegations in the New York Times articles, such as that the company has a toxic work environment. Principal dancer Piotr Huang called the claims “insulting.”

‘Scary’

The CCP’s demonization of Shen Yun has direct security implications for the performers, said Kay Rubacek, a documentary producer whose son and daughter perform with Shen Yun as part of their studies at Fei Tian College and Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, Shen Yun-affiliated religious schools.

“It’s really scary. As much as we know the serious safety concerns that Shen Yun takes for every tour, we cannot help but be concerned about their safety,” she said.

None of the bomb threats have been actualized, but “we don’t want to take it lightly,” former Shen Yun dancer Alison Chen told The Epoch Times. Chen now teaches at a branch campus of Fei Tian College in Middletown, which also has a Chinese classical dance program.

Kay Rubacek (R), parent of Lee Rubacek, student at Fei Tian College (L), speaks at a press conference highlighting the Chinese Communist Party's transnational repression activities targeting the company, at Lincoln Center in New York City on March 26, 2025. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Unknown individuals believed to be connected with Beijing have repeatedly slashed the tires of Shen Yun tour buses in a way designed to cause the tires to blow once the buses were driven at speed. Some tire slashings have happened even after the company set up 24-hour security for its buses, including an incident affecting two buses last year in Costa Mesa, California, Lemish said. Fortunately, the slashes were found before the buses embarked on another leg of the tour, the company said.

Attacks like these are “completely unacceptable,” Rubacek said. “That is not a threat. That’s attempted murder.”

Her son, Fei Tian College student Lee Rubacek, added that the threat campaign has become a distraction pulling the company from its focus.

Shen Yun performers just want to work on their art, he said. “What have we done to deserve these bomb threats, these death threats?”

Petition

Around December 2024, several Shen Yun artists and other staff members began to circulate an online petition condemning the attacks on Shen Yun and calling on the U.S. government to investigate. The petition was later forwarded to parents and other close relatives of the performers as well as some former performers.

In about two months, the petition collected 1,557 signatures, including those of 624 Shen Yun dancers, musicians, and production staff; 142 former dancers and musicians; and 791 of their family members, mostly parents, Rubacek said. At least several hundred signatories attached comments to their signatures, The Epoch Times found upon reviewing the petition, which included the name and position of each signatory.

Some parent signatories are now in the process of setting up a community organization and plan to submit the petition to the U.S. government, Rubacek said.

She previously produced a documentary series for NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times.

Beyond Shen Yun

Investigating Beijing’s influence in the United States isn’t just for Shen Yun’s sake, said Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center.

“This is a playbook. This is the ability for the Chinese regime to weaponize American institutions against America. And if they succeed in doing this against Shen Yun, against the Falun Gong community, it will not stop there,” he said at the press conference.

The U.S. government has determined that Falun Gong faces transnational repression by CCP agents on American soil. In recent years, the Justice Department has charged or sentenced a handful of individuals for advancing the repression through criminal activity on Beijing’s behalf, including two men who were convicted and sentenced for trying to bribe an IRS official to revoke Shen Yun’s nonprofit status.

Levi Browde, executive director of Falun Dafa Information Center, speaks at a press conference highlighting the Chinese Communist Party's transnational repression activities targeting the company at Lincoln Center in New York City on March 26, 2025. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

As The Epoch Times previously reported, CCP leader Xi Jinping told his inner circle that previous campaigns against Falun Gong have failed and in late 2022 launched new efforts to focus on attacking Falun Gong globally.

A cornerstone of the campaign is to seed allegations in overseas media and on social media that would prompt the U.S. government to investigate Falun Gong. CCP agents within the Falun Gong community would then stir up opposition in the community toward the U.S. government. In response, the plan goes, the U.S. government would eliminate Falun Gong on Beijing’s behalf.

The artists said they are determined to persevere. Huang said they’re not scared, because what’s happening is proof that the “CCP is scared of us.”

Update: The article has been updated with additional information.