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David Matas, Independent Scholar, CanadaAbstract
The paper addresses the issue of transnational repression in the arts through a case study. The specific focus is Chinese Communist Party (CCP)/ Government of China transnational repression of the dance company Shen Yun Performing Arts and the National Arts Centre of Ottawa, Canada. Shen Yun Performing Arts is a classical Chinese dance company, founded in 2006 by volunteers from the community of practitioners of the spiritually based set of exercises Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a blending and updating of ancient Chinese spiritual and exercise traditions, started in 1992. With the initial encouragement of the Chinese Government, the population of practitioners in China grew by 1999 to 100 million, a number which so alarmed the CCP that the Party reversed course and decided on the repression of the practice. Though the Falun Gong community was initially apolitical, its repression created understandably an opposition to that repression within the community which found its way into some of Shen Yun Performing Arts dance pieces. The dance depiction criticizing CCP regression of Falun Gong in turn generated CCP transnational repression against the dance company. This transnational repression took the form of Chinese embassy and consulate diplomatic initiatives, bomb threats against dance performance venues, lawfare and media generated disinformation. The paper sets out details of this transnational repression and the reaction of the National Arts Centre to that repression. The paper concludes with recommendations.
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Conference: IICAH2026Stream: Arts - Arts Policy
This paper is part of the IICAH2026 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Matas D. (2026) Transnational Repression and the Arts: Communist China and a Dance Company ISSN: 2432-4604 – The IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities – Hawaii 2026 Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 193-204) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2026.16
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2026.16
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