‘Shen Yun’, a performing arts company founded in 2006, gradually expanded over the years and their tours around the world are in the name of traditional Chinese culture, but have been controversial in China. It is regarded as a microphone of ‘Falun Gong’ in China, engaged in the anti-government propaganda. After viewing the performance of ‘Shen Yun’, some audiences in western country assumed that it carried a rude political motive with a low artistic level.

“After the intermission, everything was crystal clear. Shen Yun is nothing more than a podium for Falun Dafa/Falun Gong.”

On March 26, 2017, Michael Duell, a reader from Phoenix, Arizona, wrote a letter to azcentral.com after watching the show, which referred to ‘Falun Gong’ Shen Yun perform was a deceptive show, and argued that Shen Yun was behind the show, and the so-called art director, was the leader of ‘Falun Gong’, Hongzhi Li with an alias of D.F.. He said: “After the intermission, everything was crystal clear. Shen Yun is nothing more than a podium for Falun Dafa/Falun Gong.”

On December 31, 2017, the American woman writer Sydney Jane Baily posted a review of Shen Yun on her personal blog. She thought Shen Yun was a performance that relied on boasting with poor quality. Although she didn’t know about ‘Falun Gong’ and Hongzhi Li, She got to know he was the cult leader after a glimpse of program. She said, “there was an annotation on the program of each dance show, with the same person's name D.F., the founder of Shen Yun. Guess who wrote the words for the two operatic songs? Yes, D.F.. He is the artistic and creative director of Shen Yun, the chief costume designer, the classical Chinese dance instructor and the famous professor ‘Feitian School’. Even though this person might be a good person, I had only one voice in my mind: the cult leader (and he was wearing sunglasses, and his name was an acronym)!”

In January 2017, Shen Yun performed in New York and was boycotted by the local people. They protested with a banner writing ‘Resist Shen Yun. Resist the politics of evil. Stay away with ‘Falun Gong’!’ outside the theatre.