When young TikTok dance stars joined 7M Films, they got access to big production budgets, luxurious locations, and exciting career opportunities. There was a problem, however. Their boss, Robert Shinn, was a self-styled Christian pastor who placed increasing pressure on their time and finances, demanded unquestioning devotion, and isolated them from the outside world. (Julian covered the story of a family trying to regain contact with their daughter, Miranda Derrick, who had disappeared into Shinn’s Shekinah Church for Conspirituality 105: TikTok, Cults & Conspiracies.)
A new Netflix docuseries picks up where we left off. Julian talks to the series director, Derek Doneen, to discuss “Dancing for the Devil.”
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Welcome to Conspirituality, where we investigate the intersection of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience, and authoritarian extremism.
I'm Julian Walker.
You can keep up with us on Instagram at ConspiritualityPod.
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I'm joined today by film director, showrunner, and cinematographer Derek Duneen, whose documentary work has included 2018's The Price of Free, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, and 2021's acclaimed Netflix series called Heist.
Derek, thanks for taking the time.
Thanks so much for having me, Julian.
You're here today to talk about your new Netflix docuseries.
It's called Dancing for the Devil, which debuted this past Wednesday night.
It's about a cultish group that we actually covered here on the podcast almost exactly two years ago on episode 105 called TikTok Cults and Conspiracies.
And at that time, the family of a young dancer named Miranda Wilking had taken to social media on Miranda's 25th birthday to ask for help and to tell the story of how she appeared to have fallen under the control of a high demand religious group And disappeared completely from their lives.
The story went that together with her sister, Melanie, Miranda Wilking had moved out to L.A.
from Michigan to pursue the dream of becoming professional dancers.
And they actually found a lot of success.
By April 2020, their TikTok had over 2 million followers.
It's grown since then.
A Forbes magazine article detailed their having worked with Victoria's Secret.
Adidas, Nike, NBC, CoverGirl, and Seventeen Magazine, and having danced in videos for Chris Brown, Iggy Azalea, Selena Gomez, and performed live with Bruno Mars, Jason Derulo, and Joe Jonas.
But the sisters would end up being torn apart, with the family left wondering what had happened to Miranda after they got involved with someone named Robert Shin, who presented himself both as a pastor of the invitation-only Shekinah Church, And the head of a glossy media company called 7M Films that was recruiting young dancers bankrolling these very heavily produced social media videos that were usually shot by Robert Shin's son and talented videographer named Isaiah in these mansions and then creating next level career opportunities for these aspiring stars.
And those opportunities included things like appearing in Spanx and Toyota commercials, performing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and at Clippers Games.
They also appeared in videos and on tour with people like Janet Jackson and Cardi B. So my first question for you, Derek, is was this all too good to be true?
Well, yeah, I mean, I think when you see the show, you'll see that at first for a lot of these young people, it was great.
As you just detailed, they were getting really good opportunities.
They were watching their careers blossom.
These are people who, while Many of whom already had found a lot of success and were doing really well in their industry were struggling.
They were struggling financially, they were struggling to sort of bridge the gap to, in some cases, to sort of create that brand and maintain that brand for yourself online, which is often what you have to do to sort of keep The, the, the opportunities coming in.
Um, so to find somebody who says, I'm going to take care of all of that for you.
I'm going to take care of brand deals.
I'm going to take care of the business side.
I'm going to take care of shooting the content, picking the music, editing it, you know, getting it out there and, and managing all, all of the things that, that might be a pain in your side.
And all you have to do is show up and focus on your craft and do it with other young people.
Um, who by the way, are like not going out and trying to party and, And drink and use drugs like they are people who are trying to further their walk with God.
So it feels like a good alluring prospect for a lot of young people.
And like I said, it was at first.
And the message is, you know, the more you give, the more blessings you'll receive in return.
And so as they're, in their eyes, receiving these blessings, getting more opportunities, commercial opportunities, brand opportunities that they might not have had, seeing bigger paychecks come in.
You know, the messaging is, well, the more that you give to me, the man of God, the more favor that that he will sort of bestow upon you.
And and they believe that.
Absolutely.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
So do you have a clear sort of sense of connecting the dots in terms of the dancers were given all these opportunities and in exchange they were required to join the church and they were required to donate a certain amount of the income they were making?
Back to the church?
You know, the word required, I think, is buzzy.
Because, as you probably know, and your listeners probably know, nobody sets out to join a cult, right?
And I think that if he, on day one, was exerting the kind of control that he ultimately ended up exerting over his members and these young dancers, people would walk away, right?
So it's not like There is an edict of you have to give all of this money tomorrow.
It's little by little and the messaging is very strong and the peer pressure is very strong and you want to get into his favor because the more he sort of accepts you into that inner circle, the more blessings you're going to get, the more favor you're going to get.
He might be withholding jobs if you aren't giving enough or if you aren't sort of a team player enough.
He might be rebuking you in front of your peers, right?
It could be as simple as that, which sounds on its surface something that might be really simple, but it sucks.
If you're with this group of people, you want to be loved and respected and looked up to, right?
So it sort of becomes this game of trying to get as close to him as you can, trying to sort of follow the guidelines
and be as good of a member as you can.
So again, you can sort of continue to receive more and more blessings in your eyes that you're being looked
upon by God, by the man of God, as somebody
who is deserving of salvation.
And that's ultimately what they're all after.
Yeah, it's a very good description of that kind of structure and what's
so problematic about having.
In a way, like having a boss, right?
Having an employer, having the head of the organization that you're involved in for your livelihood also be the unquestioned spiritual authority at the center of your life and of the peer group that you're in, especially for young people.
Yeah, that's that is the MO for sure.
And, you know, it's not, as you see in the show, if you watch it, it goes back 25 years.
You know, it's not just on TikTok.
You know, he was using the same tactics for employees across a range of businesses that he owned.
Yeah, he even had very controversial court cases against him going back many years.
Yeah.
How did you get involved in telling the story?
Yeah, so it originated as an idea for a doc series from a dance studio owner named Tim Milgram and a producer that he's worked with named Brianna Frappart.
You know, he's obviously really connected into the dance community.
And so when the Wilking video went live, when Melanie and her parents did that Instagram Live,
it spread like wildfire within their community.
And he saw it and he was like, oh my God, like I thought something was up, shared it with her.
She got in touch with a producer friend named Jessica Acevedo, who ultimately,
with her company WV Entertainment and WV Alternative, turned it into a real project, brought it to Netflix.
Netflix, I think, was interested, but wanted to partner them with more experienced documentary filmmakers.
And so they called me, they called Dirty Robber, and we met with Jess and just kindred spirits from day one.
for both of us, it's always about placing the subjects first,
putting them at the center of this, making it about them, having respect for them,
treating this with the delicacy and care that it needs.
Obviously, we're talking about a highly delicate situation.
And for this story, one that was actively ongoing.
These are people who are experiencing trauma in real time.
You know, there are people who haven't necessarily had the time to process it, haven't had a lot of distance between those experiences and then ultimately talking with us and working on this project.
And so it was really important, again, that we made sure that they were ready to go through a journey like this and understood, you know, the implications for that and what kind of commitment that meant.
And always giving them space to say, this is too much.
I'm not comfortable.
You know, like, I need to stop filming or I just need to put the brakes on this.
You know, it was that kind of understanding that Jess and I shared very early on.
And so we hit it off, the project Um, you know, all documentary projects start with access, you know, so it really then just became, you know, who can we start talking to that might be interested in sharing their story and shedding light on this?
I have really, like, no interest in an expert-led, talking-ahead kind of documentary.
I really want to immerse with the people and allow them to tell the story in their own words, and this was no different.
So, you know, Week one, we were on the phone with the Wilking family starting that process, with Mel Lee starting that process, and it grew from there.
The dancers were still in.
Priscilla was still in when we started.
Yeah, I really noticed that about your choices in terms of how to really tell the story and the choice to stay away from having the expert talking heads that get trotted out for every Cult documentary, which can be fine.
But yeah, I like the way you went.
There's a trio of anonymous Instagram accounts, Expose7M, CultYuck, and StopCulting that belong to former members.
And I actually talked to them a couple years ago when I first covered this story in preparing for it.
And they also talked to The Cut, Who did some really excellent reporting back then.
And I noticed in the first couple episodes of your documentary, you make really good use, as you were just talking about, of ex-members and of interviewing, just having little moments of them talking about the stories unfolding and how it was for them when they were still in the group.
Were they nervous to come forward?
I mean, I appreciate what you were just saying about being sensitive about the traumatic history of what they've been going through.
Were they nervous to come forward?
Were they nervous to be identified on camera?
And then I also am curious if there were legal concerns that you had in terms of dealing with the kinds of allegations that they make against Shekinah Church and Robert Shin.
I just want to clarify one thing, which is that exposing 7M and StopCulting, two of the Instagram accounts you mentioned, helped on the projects. They provided a lot of the research
and screenshots and things that were happening before our production was up and running.
They were a really helpful resource.
They are not run by former members. They are in frequent contact with former members and
have a lot of sources, but they are run by people who, just like you and me, saw the story spreading
and said, I want to know more and I want to do something about this.
And they started just digging on their own and uncovering more and more and said, oh my gosh, we need to get this message out.
So just a point of clarity there.
And then to answer your question, yeah, of course.
Of course, they're so nervous.
Who wouldn't be?
I think there are sort of two groups of people we're talking about here.
You know, one are the dancers and the other are the former members who don't have an online persona, right?
For the dancers, they have a very big following already and it's entirely curated by them, right?
I think that that is the Well, you know, what social media is all about is you put as much of yourself as you want out there, but it is an editorialized, curated version of yourself that you want the world to see.
And they have been very much in control of that for a very long time.
Obviously, when they were in 7M, it was a little different.
You know, they had, you know, Robert and Hannah and their mentors sort of You know, having their hands in that.
But generally speaking, you know, this is a version of themselves that they have chosen to present to the world.
And so to come work with me and Jess and our production and have us say, you know, we need you to trust us.
You know, we want to tell your story honestly and with respect for you and the courage that it's taking to speak up.
But ultimately, you know, the way that we do that is on us.
That's our...
Creative choices to make.
And, you know, so, yeah, of course that's nerve-wracking for them.
And for the ex-members who have never been public like that to put themselves out there, that was not something they wanted to do at first, you know?
Ultimately, it became about helping other people and seeing to it that Robert gets the justice he deserves because they weren't seeing it any other way.
And they felt that by sharing their story and getting the word out, maybe it might move the needle.
And then in terms of the legal concerns, like, I would imagine you had to, you know, walk a little bit of a tightrope.
Yeah, I mean, every project, but this one especially, you know, we have a team of lawyers who is reviewing every cut that we make, you know, giving us feedback along the way.
But yeah, I mean, Robert is extremely litigious.
He's involved in multiple active lawsuits right now.
He goes after anybody who sort of tries to talk bad about him publicly and, you know, He's powerful.
He's got a lot of money and resources, and he wields that power.
And so, yeah, absolutely.
It was a concern.
It's something we've all thought about.
But again, we trust our lawyers implicitly.
They're really good at what they do.
And we have to listen when they give feedback and make sure that everything that we're putting in the doc is vetted, that it's been fact checked that, you know, even though what you see on
the screen is what you get, there are multiple other sources that we've talked to on
background that weren't on the record, you know, that corroborate a lot of the stories that we put
in there, you know, and then when it comes to, you know, the financial documents, his sermons,
his recordings, things like that, we just, yeah, of course, had to make sure that we did
everything above board and that the lawyers gave us the green light to put it on Netflix.
So as viewers go deeper into the show.
The focus starts to shift from the Wilking sisters and from the young American dancers and takes an even darker turn because we begin to learn about Shin's pervasive pattern, it seems, of physical and sexual violence, particularly about one woman named Priscilla, who was involved in the cult for 23 years before finally breaking free.
I feel like you do a really good job of letting her tell her story and giving the audience a glimpse into the psychological and relational damage that she has dealt with.
You also show this really satisfying moment where she and I think it's her legal team show up and serve legal papers on Shin and his lieutenants in this restaurant.
No, it's her sister.
It's her.
It's Priscilla Mel and their friends.
The lawyers weren't there for that.
Yeah.
OK.
Yeah.
But they basically like show up and confront him with like, hey, you've been served.
That's the phase of the documentary where that's it's you know, it's a little bit like a suspenseful narrative moment that's happening.
What was covering all of that like?
Two different answers, because you mentioned her sexual abuse that took place over many years, and you also mentioned the serving.
I think covering both of those stirred different emotions.
Yes.
Look, I mean, I think any woman who's brave enough to come forward and talk about their abuse publicly, that is an impossibly difficult decision to make, as we've seen countless times, you know.
And so I just am in constant awe of the strength and courage that it took for Pri and others to come forward and share those experiences.
And, you know, I just know how difficult that was.
And we had a lot of conversations leading up to the interview that we filmed where she went into that detail, you know, really making sure that that was what she wanted to do.
And ultimately, again, it was about You know, bringing down Robert, helping the people who are still in there, helping other people, inspiring other people who are out there to give them the strength that they might need, you know, to leave an abusive relationship or to speak up.
And so, yeah, I mean, I mean, this has been such an emotional project from the beginning, and certainly that was at the center of A lot of the very strong emotions felt by our team and heavy responsibility that we carried to honor that storytelling.
On the flip side, when she went to serve, it was empowering and badass.
This is somebody who was ready to go confront their abuser.
She wanted to be there.
She wanted to look him in the eye or see it happen.
It was an empowering moment.
It wasn't just for Robert.
I mean, she's been doing that.
There are plenty of others on the lawsuit who she's gone and served, and it's not something she has to do.
There are companies that do this, but it was something she felt compelled to do.
And when she told us that she was going to do it, and this is the day I'm doing it, and you can come if you want, but I'm doing it either way, of course, I had to be there.
Incredible.
Yeah, really incredible.
You return periodically throughout the episodes to playing little snippets of audio of Robert Shinn's sermons, in which he's, you know, at times responding to media reports about him and trying to spin them in different ways.
Has he actually responded to you directly in the process of making the documentary?
Have you had any communication with him?
No.
So I reached out to Robert and the dancers, everybody that we talk about in the show, I reached out.
Um, at the very beginning of the project, just, you know, before I started shooting anything, just to say, to introduce myself, say, hey, this is who I am.
This is what I'm doing.
I would very much, you know, I'm just learning right now.
I'm discovering all of this.
I don't know what to believe.
I would welcome you coming and telling your side of the story and participating in this project.
It is going forward whether you choose to or not.
But I never got through to him.
I was talking to a PR rep who he'd hired, I think in the wake of the live video that the Wilkings put out in the early wave of press back in 2022.
So he had somebody helping with that stuff.
I talked to her a few times, ultimately didn't go anywhere.
They declined to participate.
And then as we got deeper into the project, I reached out again, you know, first by phone.
I had their numbers at that point, so I called them directly.
I did talk to Robert for all of 10 seconds, and as soon as, you know, he heard who I was and why I was calling, he said, I've got a call on the other line, I gotta go, and then he hung up.
I did talk to Isaiah for about 10 minutes.
He was cool, you know, and seemingly open and was sharing his experience as a filmmaker as well, saying that he was getting into documentary and he would think about it.
We had a couple texts back and forth, but ultimately he Going wild.
None of the dancers got back to me.
I think James B-Dash did respond and just said he had no interest, but everybody else just ignored it.
We had phone calls, text messages, emails.
But you know, at the end of the day, I think it's...
At least in Robert's case, I almost think it's better that he didn't.
I didn't want the show to be about him.
We've all seen the cult documentary that is about the cult leader.
His playbook is no different than any other, and I didn't want to give him more of a platform than he needed.
I think you want to create enough context and awareness and understanding of what's going on
and how he does what he does, of course.
You have to bring him to life as a character, as a subject in the show.
But beyond that, I really wanted to center the victims, the families, the ex-members.
It's their story to tell.
It's an incredibly powerful story.
It becomes an active story as they are working to free their family members and to seek justice.
And that was really, I think, more exciting for me was to just live in that experience as again, as opposed to giving him more of a platform.
Yeah, I think it's an excellent choice.
I want to end by recommending listeners go and watch Dancing with the Devil on Netflix.
Part of the final episode shows how the young people who've gotten out of Shekinah are healing and empowered and thriving in various ways.
And even how Miranda Wilking now does spend some time with her family, although I'll let listeners go and see how complicated that is.
But my last question for you is, R7M and Shekinah and Pastor, so-called Pastor Robert Chin, No longer operating?
What's the status at the moment?
Well, I mean, back when this got pretty hot the first time, they publicly eventually came out and said that 7M was no more.
At a certain point down the road, they said that the church services in Chicano were no more.
You know, we generally know that to not be true with pretty strong certainty.
They don't call it 7M, maybe.
I mean, Slavic just had, he had 7M in his bio until the trailer came in until a week or two ago.
You know, but generally speaking, you know, they don't talk about 7M anymore, but I don't think The structure has changed, or the management system has changed.
They are still dancing to the same songs exclusively with each other, you know, and nothing has really changed.
We also know from talking to the families, and you know, this isn't hopefully spoiling too much, that this is an ongoing situation, you know.
They're still in.
They're still doing that we know, even though they say that church services, you know, are no longer happening.
That's why Priscilla and her sister served when they did, because it was around a church service.
They knew that the service was going to happen at a certain time of day, and they were there.
And sure enough, 10 minutes before the service, we see the cars arriving.
An hour and change later, we see the cars leaving, and that's when they went on the So, you know, based on that alone, like, we have, again, pretty strong certainty that the services are still going on.
We know that, you know, unfortunately, Miranda, Nick, and others are still there under his control.
And, you know, I just hope that this project can... I hope they watch it.
You know, I hope Miranda and Nick watch this and see how much their parents love them, see why they're doing what they're doing, where this is coming from and maybe it stirs something in them.
You know, they obviously need something to sort of wake them up a little bit and help them see, you know, the light, so to speak.
