Unbroken Shen Yun Movie Transcript

Name: UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2026-03-24

Piotr Huang 0:28

Yeah, that's good.

Piotr Huang 0:36

That's good. Lucas can you come up and do the spin again

Lucas Browde 0:48

I never imagined myself dancing before.

Lucas Browde 0:53

I remember I said, Oh, dancing is for girls. Why would I dance? Jesse can you move forward a bit. I remember when I first started dancing, all the energy and emotions I have, I could let it out. Growing up, me and my brother fought. We had lots of arguments. After going to Fei Tian and joining Shen Yun, we never argued again.

Jesse Browde 1:28

we never expected that it would take us to today. It's hard, it's tiring, but you get to travel the world. You get to go to places that most people only dream of going to. You get to see people's eyes kind of sparkle, and everybody in the theater is just in awe.

Lucas Browde 1:50

I wanted to put all of it into dance,

Lucas Browde 1:54

but never would I have imagined what battle I joined,

2:01

a series of threats targeting performances by Shen Yun, got threats to shoot up the performance.

Levi Browde 2:07

Hey buddy, you guys are okay. I knew my boys were giving a voice to those who couldn't speak out. And just for that, there are people who would come after them.

NEWS SOTS 2:18

We've just gotten confirmation from the Kennedy Center that it was a bomb threat

Levi Browde 2:23

who would go so far to threaten their lives. Lovely job, guys. I never imagined my boys would become a target of the most ruthless totalitarian regime on earth.

Levi Browde 2:55

can you please not run into the fence full tilt this time,

Dancer:

That was fun tho

Levi

not for me.

Lucas Browde

A week before the dance test,

Jesse Browde 3:00

before I started dancing, I played baseball for six, seven years, roughly, stay alive. For the past five years, I've toured the world with my brother by my side.

Levi Browde 3:16

Oh my gosh, he's got it. He's got it. No, he does not. There we go.

Jesse Browde 3:22

Oh, maybe, maybe, maybe, oh, it's gone. All right, that's it.

Jesse Browde 3:30

One more. One more. I honestly can't ask for more support, more love from my family. To be honest, growing up, my dad was the man of the house,

Levi Browde 3:40

mommy, that's you, mommy, that's you.

Lucas Browde 3:42

My mom was, you know, taking care of the two noisy boys, driving them into baseball practice every other hour.

Levi Browde 3:52

Beautiful. This is just beautiful.

Lucas Browde 3:56

We were pretty close. We were all dependent on each other.

Jesse Browde 4:09

For athletes, dancers, anything, everything you do, has to be perfect. You have to strive to be perfect.

Jesse Browde 4:27

watching the Shen Yun show in early 2018 kind of pushed me on the road to dancing.

Jesse Browde 4:34

I watched the show, and I was like, Okay, I really want to be a part of this.

Jesse Browde 4:42

I saw the way the Shen Yun dancers were on stage, how they were inspiring people, how they were kind of just bringing good into people through the show.

Jesse Browde 4:52

I really wanted to do that as well.

Lucas Browde 4:55

I think a lot of people have the experience the first time you watch it. You get a very powerful feeling kind of flows through you, and you can't really explain it.

Lucas Browde 5:03

To this day, I can't really explain it.

Levi Browde 5:07

The boys came in and said, We want to try the dance track. And mom was like, No, you're too fat. You're too old, no. And I was like, Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let's hold on.

Levi Browde 5:18

I didn't know anything about classical Chinese dance, sort of a combination of like what I think you'd get if you went to Juilliard and West Point Academy all at once.

Jesse Browde 5:35

Honestly, I was nervous. I was very nervous because I knew from watching the show the standards are very, very high, and I knew I did not meet those standards.

Jesse Browde 5:46

I was 15 years old when I first got accepted to Fei Tian Academy of the Arts. It's this amazing opportunity that we get to be able to tour with Shen Yun Performing Arts as part of our education. We call this practicum.

Lucas Browde 6:08

the beginning stages, the first thing you have to do flexibility,

Lucas Browde 6:12

that is the number one entry level doors open. You gotta get flexible.

Jesse Browde 6:16

I was one of the stiffer ones in our class.

Jesse Browde 6:20

I guess I took it upon myself to kind of just put in the extra time. I knew it was only a beginning. Buckle down. There's even more work to do.

Levi Browde

It was sometimes hard to watch, just because he was sort of pushing himself to get to the level he had to get to

Levi Browde 6:38

Three months in, I got a phone call, and it was my son. He was in the dance studio up at feitian by himself, doing some extra stretching, and he was having a hard time.

Jesse Browde 6:50

I'd try and, like, go down splits, and I'd hold there for a really long time, and then it was kind of just me and my pain, and that's it.

Levi Browde 6:57

I just sat with him on the phone and talked for a little bit. I hung up and I was like, gosh, I'm probably gonna get more of these phone calls. That's okay. That's what dads are for.

Levi Browde 7:07

Never got one again.

Dance competition announcer

Next is number 414, Jesse browde.

Levi Browde 7:16

A few months after that, he's doing things with his legs. I was like, whoa.

Lucas Browde

I lot of physically demanding things like sports or dancing, there's gonna be this adrenaline rush, but dance is more expressive. Your soul really has to enter that environment or story that you're acting out. It's your whole body. You have to master your body. You have to take control of everything being able to move like a true piece of art. After Jesse got accepted, I struck a resolve like I want to go to

right now I'm enrolled at Fei ting Academy of the Arts. There's green hills that roll up too these wooden temples that I've never seen anything like before. And spend some mist on the lake, and there's snow on the temples. It's beautiful inside dragon springs are the shining companies and the boarding schools that my brother and I attend.

Jesse Browde 8:42

The more time I spent in the fetian system and the Shen Yun system, that I slowly, gradually began to realize, like, how truly amazing this opportunity is, kind of pushing me to be the best artist I could be. I just hope I can continue this career for as long as I can, because I don't want anything else in the world.

BOYS

Fridge. Let's go to the fridge. Let's go to the fridge. Okay, coffee. I gave you some coffee. What is this?

Lucas Browde 9:14

Here's your fat boy. Oh, we just had our academic exams. Very relieved it's over.

NEWS SOTS 9:28

The New York Times has for six months been preparing a series of articles against Shen Yun. Performing Arts. You've done this big investigation into Shen Yun.

NYT

They were discouraged from seeking medical help if they got injured, the conditions sound so extreme. Why do people put up with this? Or why do their parents let them stay

Lucas Browde

when I heard about all these terrible things New York Times was saying about my school and even my family, At first I was like, why are they doing this? I feel like they've picked a certain viewpoint. But what about all the other people's viewpoints like mine?

Steve Lance 10:17

Let me see if I can find it from the New York Times. I'm Rachel Abrams. This is the daily The New York Times is alleging that Shen Yun dancers are denied medical treatment when they're injured.

NYT podcast 10:27

When we dug more into Shen Yun, what we uncovered through many, many months of reporting was this massive operation built on exploitation and coercion.

Steve Lance 10:40

Morning, everybody, Iris, what was your biggest takeaway from the I host a show here called the Capitol Report. Want to make sure we get the dissenting voices in there too. What really drives me is making sure that the audience gets the full picture and sees the complete story. Today. I'm Steve Lance, fair and reciprocal trade to national security and perhaps other issues, maybe slave labor, human health. I had been covering Shen Yun for many years. I had met many Shen Yun dancers and spoke to them. It just really conflicted with my experience. So far, Shen Yun had been highly regarded around the world.

Martin Freeman

It was really lovely. I love the color. I love the music.

Tony Robbins 11:24

To see another part of Chinese culture that a lot of people don't get to see.

Leeshai Lemish 11:29

Taiwan's President lai qingda and more than 100 government officials sent congratulatory messages and

Steve Lance 11:35

well wishes for the performances as a, you know, competitive hockey player growing up, I know that athletes of any kind have to be in good health. You can't be number one in any competitive sports environment if you abuse your players or don't allow them to be treated as I watch Shen Yun perform at the level that they do. I'm asking myself, could they be getting away with this culture of systematic abuse, I

Steve Lance 12:12

started to call around to one of the doctors who treated the Shen Yun dancers. How long have you been seeing patients from Shen Yun.

Damon Noto 12:21

I been seeing dancers since about 2010 Okay, the patient is here. I did my residency at Cornell, Columbia, New York Presbyterian Hospital. Then I went on to my fellowship in Boston at New England Baptist I've seen quite a bit of different professional athletes, from basketball players to soccer players to dancers, to many performers. Yes, I've seen a lot.

Steve Lance 12:47

What was your initial reaction when you saw or heard about some of the things coming out of the

Damon Noto 12:53

New York Times? Doesn't line up with my personal experience at all. I've never seen anybody with hold care or push them not to go for treatment. In fact, my staff members, when that article came out, we just had performers in her office the day before, we were getting evaluated for sprains and minor injuries, so they thought it was funny.

NEWS SOTS 13:14

Simone Biles getting set for her floor routine, the greatest gymnast of all time. We did just see her hop down the stairs on one foot.

Damon Noto 13:18

Reality is, professional athletes, professional performers. A lot of them perform and play in pain, serious injury ends the NFL, a lot of them have either chronic injury or they're saying, You know what, I can do it. So then there becomes a safety issues, like, Okay, you might have some pain, but is it safe for you to perform? And that's usually that fine line. So we always are looking at what's best for the performer before actually letting them back on stage. To be honest, it's in their best interest, right? If you have a dislocated knee, you're not going to be doing back flips and jumping and doing all the things that they can be able to do, because it's just not physically possible.

Steve Lance 14:03

Have you heard from the New York Times yet? No.

Damon Noto 14:05

In fact, when it came out, I was like, waiting for them to call me and say, Hey, okay, probably any day they're gonna reach out to me get my take on it, but nothing. How you gonna write an article trying to do an expose or investigation where you're not even talking with any of the health care professionals that are treating the performers, right? Did it make any sense to me,

Steve Lance 14:31

why didn't any of that make it into the New York Times coverage? I reached out to Shen Yun the

Ying Chen 14:43

beautiful concert hall in here, and you can see pictures of some of our concertos. It's like photo from the orchestra pit of the Shen Yun theater.

In Shen Yun, we have both salaried professionals as well as student artists in Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, or fetian. College who get to participate in the performances about us, discouraging medical treatment that is so far from the truth. You know, how can the dance company thrive when we don't take care of injuries of our dancers or musicians? We have lots of proof of medical treatments after the New York Times articles came out. We have performers who gave us these records.

Steve Lance 15:26

So these are all, pretty much all different dancers here,

Ying Chen 15:28

yes, they voluntarily gave us these records here. Show them. Oh, wow. This is paramount medical imaging. 20, yeah, MRI. This one is AP and lateral view of the right forum,

Steve Lance

this looks like an operation, right?

Steve Lance 15:44

Yep, me right with ACL

Ying Chen 15:47

reconstruction, right?

Steve

And did you show these to the New York Times?

Ying Chen 15:50

No, we didn't have a chance. We told them that we have these records, and we offered to them the opportunity to interview some of our dancers who have gone through treatments, but they just ignore that and publish the article anyway.

Steve Lance 16:12

Iris meeting

the dancers, clearly do receive medical treatment. We have medical records, doctors willing to speak on the record. So why is there this discrepancy with what the New York Times is reporting professional athlete that, you know, they live for that moment. It's going to take a lot to pull them off. Peter's here joining us from New York. We think it's going to be good to get everybody else's input.

Petr Svab 16:34

I looked into research on dance injuries in general. It looks like they're actually doing quite a bit better than the industry. It averages that treat

Steve Lance 16:43

these and it wasn't only the injuries. The articles you know, also raise serious allegations that dancers endure abuse, forced labor exploitation.

Petr Svab 16:53

The New York Times still has kind of this agenda setting power, you know, once they decide what the story is, it's kind of an

Steve Lance 17:00

uphill battle. Peter's going to be here in DC a lot more often, so we'll have to see where this takes us. If you guys want to join me in the office, these are reports coming from one of the most influential news organizations in our country. Many people choose the New York Times as their primary and only source of information. So it raised the question, How and why did they come to these conclusions that they did

NYT Reporter 17:31

the conditions sound so extreme? Why do people put up with this? Or why do their parents let them stay

Levi Browde 17:42

My family's been reading the New York Times, as far as I can tell, since like the Eisenhower administration. Honestly, I was initially kind of angry. The implication of if the Shen Yun system for training young artists was as what they said, that means we, the parents, are willingly giving up the children that we love dearly to some sort of labor camp factory, which was ridiculous. My concerns for my sons came down to what's going to happen to the place they've come to love. This was their whole future that was being targeted. that needs an answer.

Alison Chen 18:34

When Shen Yun first started being attacked by the media, initially, I was thinking, Oh, I'll stay out of it, because I'm not even in Shen Yun anymore. You know, it doesn't really affect me. It doesn't affect my life, my career. Do you see that? But after I read some of them, I was like, this is really, really wrong.

Angela Lin 19:01

It's very heartbreaking. I do feel very sad for the people who do read the article and they do believe it, because that's completely like, not what it is like here or what I've been through. It's completely the opposite

Piotr Huang 19:21

thinking from a logical perspective, what performing company could be successful if was forcing its dancers to perform injured. They're just laughable.

Lucas Browde 19:36

I'm not angry at them. I'm not angry at anyone. I'm just like, What can I do to tell people our side. You feel this responsibility to uphold what's been so dear to you, to really show the audience the authentic side.

Jesse Browde 19:56

It kind of added the fuel to my inner drive, because there are so many people out there with, like, a skewed perspective on Shen Yun, the best thing I can do, at least, is to train harder. We're defending those we love. We're defending this place that's given us so much we

Lucas Browde 20:23

It felt a little bit different this year. Yes, I will. We almost couldn't wait to go on tour.

Lucas Browde 20:36

All we want is to share this beautiful art to people, to touch people's hearts the way the performance once touched ours, you know, and I think this tour is our chance to do it the camera on our way to Part of me was like, oh gosh, it's gonna be tough. But the other half me was like, I'm going on an adventure. This year. We have eight companies touring the world simultaneously. We need to complete a 200 city tour for my company. Our last show is in Korea.

Piotr Huang 21:18

We have our passion for our culture. We have our passion for art, the only thing we want to do is to share that culture with the world, and the only way we know how to do it is through our dance and music.

Angela Lin 21:28

I like to remind myself that there's 1000s of people watching, and it might be their first and only time watching this show. I hope that I can do my best for them. Wu

Lucas Browde 21:56

because we come up with a new show every year, like completely new dance pieces, new music, new costumes, everything. There's so many moves we have to make sure it's drilled in our brains. We have to make sure each year's program is not only unique, but also on par, if not better, than years before.

Jesse Browde 22:21

Every single day is like a huge opportunity to improve on stage. Any slight shift in attention can cause a mistake. It comes back to kind of just blocking out all the distractions, putting aside whatever worries and fears that you have you're responsible for the eyes of 1000s of people. You have to give everything you have.

Rachel Chen 23:00

As a second generation Chinese American growing up in a mostly Caucasian suburb in Chicago, I was actually embarrassed by my culture growing up, I was so focused on being as Western and as American as I could be.

Rachel Chen 23:20

When Shane came to perform in Chicago, I was around nine, and to see my culture so beautiful and brilliantly displayed on stage, I was like, really intrigued. Okay, I just want to work on Milky Way lovers. I want to change the phrasing that, knowing that shayun of ATN was a place where people were just like me. It was just seemed really cool to go and perform. Being able to travel around the world in all these top venues and all these different orchestra hits and stages. It has really pushed my growth, as in musicians, we tend to rush the eighth note going into this good orchestra is able to feel each other. Okay, let's try from letter

Ying Chen 24:10

C the artistic process of performing arts. It's really a thrill to be part of it.

Ying Chen 24:22

We have an orchestra that permanently includes traditional Chinese instruments as well as Western classical instruments. Our mission is really to revive the true, authentic Chinese traditional culture. For 1000s of years, Chinese culture has always been spiritual. That's part of our heritage, which has been destroyed by the communist regime after it took over

Piotr Huang 24:55

to God send the last last triangle to China. Yeah, Hugh, here you can be here. I'm in charge of rehearsals for the male male dancers. We had a sense of anticipation. I heard from some of my colleagues from other troupes. Some shows were they were affected. You know, people didn't come. We didn't know how it would go in New York, especially where your time is based. The recording from last show. They spin both legs and I open the left. There's no bigger venue than Lincoln Center to show them our culture. And speed up here, you have to put extra focus into it. We have a tight schedule, and the rehearsals are very tight. We tend to get very nervous, and you have to be compassionate. You have to let everyone grow naturally. There's

Piotr Huang 25:59

many performers in my company that I've toured for many, many years, some of them over 10 years. Whenever we hear someone walk over, just from the footsteps like we know who it is, I like to imagine it as like a battlefield. You know, you learn to trust them with your life. You

Steve Lance 26:30

we're out here at Lincoln Center right now. It's opening night. Would you like to read more about it? Yes, please, right before the show. And we saw some folks handing out leaflets, and they had Chinese characters billboard around them, so we stopped to take a look. They're handing out the New York Times articles here. Have you seen the show before?

Protestor 26:59

Basically, they're doing on abuse, and he could explain more to you. How did you hear about this opportunity? I wouldn't want

Protestor 27:08

to give you a correct information.

Leeshai Lemish 27:11

Where did you hear about it? Yeah,

NYT Reporter 27:15

just prior to you asking me, yeah, what about what's your day job?

Protestor 27:20

We're a consultant.

Steve Lance

You're a consultant, yeah,

Steve Lance 27:24

typically, when you have somebody that is out protesting, it's usually a cause that they believe in, it's a passion that they have, and that clearly didn't come across with these people. You had one Chinese gentleman who was acting in a very secretive fashion, didn't really want to be seen. You could tell he was the one that was organizing the material. It's just very unusual. So who are these people? Really bear with me here. Take some videos with the

Alison Chen 27:56

gentleman that we saw in front of Lincoln Center.

Steve Lance 27:59

We started to receive some videos from our sources. In one of the videos, we saw these supposed protesters at Lincoln Center returning the banners that they were holding back to a travel agency in Flushing, which is New York City's Chinatown. Later, we saw these same banners popping up again on the street just steps away from that travel

Steve Lance 28:31

agency on camera, a man admitted that he was paid to protest this one. Party,

Steve Lance 28:50

the banners are then returned to a travel agency to a well known community figure named Michael Chu that then led to the question, why would he hired people to attack Shen Yun. Would you like to read more about it? It just became clear that these weren't ordinary citizens upset about Shen Yun. They were paid protesters organized by Michael Chu I reached out to a colleague who had covered flushing for years. I

Joshua Philipp 29:25

familiar, the very familiar name.

Steve Lance 29:27

How did you stumble upon him? So

Joshua Philipp 29:29

Michael Chu has never concealed his connections to Chinese spy systems. Frankly, if any, if I find anything shocking about this, it's that he's not behind bars. The guy's been able to keep operating like he has on his business card, not even hiding it. Used to have three organizations. One of them was tied to the Overseas Chinese affairs office directly underneath it, the other one is tied to the United States. And Work Department directly underneath it. He wasn't trying to hide it. Now, maybe at the time, they thought that that was a good idea, because nobody knew what these organizations were. These are open Chinese spy organizations, Wu.

Steve Lance 30:23

You the fact that a Chinese spy organization is behind these protests, it just tells you there's something much bigger going on here than meets the eye. Yeah, if you could send me that information, how come the New York Times articles ended up becoming propaganda used by CCP spies. If a Chinese spy organization can operate an America unchecked, what else does the Communist Party have up and running here?

Piotr Huang 30:59

I'm just very saddened to see how we're being attacked from all directions just because we love what we do.

Angela Lin 31:07

This is very dear to heart for us.

Jesse Browde 31:10

There's a big reason why we perform, and it's part of what drives us every single day, is because we're given an opportunity to do what millions of people can't. We're giving a voice to people who can't speak out.

Lucas Browde 31:28

It's like really stepping into a character. You first have to analyze a character. What do they think? Like? How do they move? You build that character. You step into the shoes. You can express more with dance. You can change the world more with dance.

Jesse Browde 31:49

What we're trying to do at Shen Yun is not just to revive the rich and glorious history of China's past, but every year, one piece is dedicated to telling the story of peoples of faith in modern China. I think

Levi Browde 32:06

one thing that's very important to understand about Shen Yun is when and why and how it was forged. It was forged amidst this horrible persecution.

NEWS SOTS 32:16

The Beijing government has officially banned the palungong and has launched a major nationwide propaganda campaign against Mr. LI and his movement.

Leeshai Lemish 32:28

We've had recent report of 15 women tortured to death in the northeastern province, and just a few days ago, 10 men tortured to death in the same province. These are our mass killings. Wu.

Levi Browde 32:44

We practice Falun Gong, which is a Buddhist based spiritual practice that was widely popular in China before it was horribly persecuted there, and it puts a value on meditation and living your life each day, trying to be more honest, more compassionate, more resilient. Sounds easy. Sometimes it can be very, very difficult. But these are principles that we all practice, my whole family practices and the schools at Shen Yun, the Shen Yun company, this spiritual practice is really the foundation of the workplace culture. It's a foundation of the schools themselves.

Jesse Browde 33:19

You're just trying to better yourself as a person, you can always learn from other people's strengths. You know you're never, ever the best one in the room,

Alison Chen 33:26

truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. I feel like they're universal principles.

Ying Chen 33:31

It grew so popular in China that it was estimated about 70 to 100 million people were practicing it in 1999 suddenly, the government decided to crush it, and they felt

Leeshai Lemish 33:44

there was too many people compared to the size of Chinese Communist Party. And Jiang Zemin, who was the architect of the persecution, said, If we cannot defeat Falun Gong, it will be the biggest embarrassment to the Communist Party and to Marxism.

Ying Chen 34:00

We have 94 current Shang performers who have either personally experienced the persecution or have their family members suffered from the persecution. This is something that's like a lingering wound.

Jesse Browde 34:22

I have a few classmates who have fled from China because of this persecution. It is very real, especially in the environment of Shen Yun, there are performers who have lost family members.

Lucas Browde 34:35

When I hear about people getting beaten to death for just believing in simple human principles to know the fact that that's happening in this world today is so any human would want to go and stop it's.

Steve Wang 35:00

So much around 2001 I went to visit my father in a Chinese labor camp between my father and me, the glass was really thick. No matter how hard you hit, there was no sound. When my mom told me that dad passed away. It hit me really hard. I lost my father because of the persecution I felt so wronged, so helpless, family destroyed, loved ones, lost

Ying Chen 35:40

both of my parents were musicians. They were both members of the central Philharmonic Orchestra in China. One night, in the middle of the night, suddenly, a group of people stormed my parents and my brother's apartments in Beijing, took away my mother and my brother from their beds. My brother barely survived from the unspeakable torture that he continued to endure. We're talking about innocent, law abiding citizens who simply try to follow a spiritual practice.

Steve Wang 36:17

When I first came to Shen Yun, I just thought I had a great opportunity to dance on the world stage. Shen Yun allows me to tell the stories of what's happening in China. After all, I lived through all of this. I remember a few pieces that portray the police rushing into the home of a family of three, the cops threw the parents to the ground and pulled the little girl away during the play, the father stood in front to protect his wife and daughter. The police lost control and beat the practitioner to death. I was playing the father, so I imagine what it was like for my father, who was persecuted, what he had to do to protect my mother or sister. I will never forget that. That's why I'm dancing with Shen Yun

Levi Browde 37:20

you know, when this persecution first started, I knew nothing about China. I was meditating in the park, and I thought it was great. And, you know, and this wonderful spiritual practice had really transformed my life. And suddenly, one of my friends from China, comes into work one day and says, my mother's disappeared. I'm like what it was very, very popular in the 1990s in fact, the Chinese government did a survey, and in 1999 found that there were 70 to 100 million people. The Falun Dafa Information Center is a nonprofit we've been running for almost two decades. Over the last 18 months, the persecution of Falun Gong in China has escalated significantly so from 2025 years ago, I was in the public eye criticizing the largest totalitarian regime on Earth. And when I have young children that had always given me pause, it seems this persecution has come to America's shores.

Steve Lance 38:37

Around the same time that the New York Times published these articles, I came across a Chinese YouTuber online who claims to be their source. He interviews a handful of disgruntled former Shen Yun dancers, and on his social media, he actually brags about connecting some of them with the New York Times, and he even posted about the upcoming articles long before they were published, it's highly likely that he's one of their key sources. Hey, Alicia, it's Steve. How are you? Hey, Steve. So I was running some searches online about a person who claims to be the New York Times source, and I just wanted to see if you have noticed that.

Leeshai Lemish 39:19

Yeah, we're still looking into that he was spotted around campus. This individual has talked about having a Suicide Squad and about violence against the our community, and was seen walking around our headquarters. The police issued a police statement saying that he needs to stay away. I

Steve Lance 39:43

Why is some youtuber with such obvious animosity towards Shen Yun at the very center of the New York Times reporting Wu.

Leeshai Lemish 40:07

Woman,

Leeshai Lemish 40:16

our journey through Chinese history now brings us to the present. We see how in times, we are going through a tough time right now, it's not easy to try to portray that as something dark. I think it's really hurtful. So I'm thinking of looking roughly. I tend to think a lot, and so I have a lot of thoughts racing in my mind all the time. Before a performance, what I will do if I'll meditate for a few minutes and I just focus on this next intro and really just be present here in the show and do the best job that I can the audience is only seeing this one time. Let's give them a perfect chill. There's an image, no image. Image. I've been with Shen Yun since late 2006 what really drives me is the way that the performance brings hope to people. My name is Li Shai, and today we invite you to discover a culture inspired by the heavens. When you say something and you hear the audience go, oh, really, I love those. Moms can express a wide range of emotions.

Angela Lin 41:19

It usually does not end up looking the same every time, but it's okay. It's stage makeup, so you can't really tell if it's a little bit different. So we run through a couple pieces just to get the feeling for the stage. You get to portray a lot of different characters. This year, I'm portraying a kung fu lady boss, and she beats up these guys who come in and interfere with her business. It's very fun. Actually,

Angela Lin 41:58

I'm more of an introvert, but with dance, I'm able to express what I feel or what I want to say with my movements to the audience. It's your inner emotion. Basically. It kind of flows through all of your movements. You can't see it. It's hard to describe, but everyone does it a little bit differently. As artists, we really believe in our mission. I met so many great people, and I've learned so much through this whole experience. It was completely like dream come true. I

Leeshai Lemish 42:44

Wu sound check through Shen Yun through this performance. We take this story that has been covered up by the Chinese Communist Party, has sometimes been covered up by Western press, and we put it on stage at the Kennedy Center, at the Lincoln Center, in front of congressmen and parliament members in Europe, we tell them, This is what's happening in China, right? 1000s of years Chinese civilization was deeply connected to the divine. This tradition continues today, with millions of people practicing the meditation discipline called Falun Dafa. But under China's Communist regime, they're being persecuted for their faith.

Lucas Browde 43:23

A big thing we show in the show is how, no matter how hard or how much they get oppressed, the goodness will always come out upon the evil. You know, when they see all these beautiful values being portrayed, it touches their soul.

AUDIENCE 43:39

It was absolutely extraordinary, the beauty of divine beings performing. That's exactly what we saw on stage. You think of the plight of the practitioners in China who are being tortured, who would have thought that after that, that the whole world would be covered with these with these troops. So all I can say is tremendous. Congratulations.

Jesse Browde 44:08

It is currently 4:54am this is fun. Whose idiot I do is this thing is yours? Sunrise, crew, mission. Sunrise, this past tour we were in Australia, there's something about kind of not just taking those photos, but kind of just being there with my friends, my brother, watching the sun rise over the ocean. That kind of just washed away all your kind of worries and small little knots you have inside your heart. It kind of just faded, just left with the unadulterated beauty of nature. You

Leeshai Lemish 45:20

Wu Sure. Huh? Is this better? Sounds okay? Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I'll try to give you a view from what it's like on the ground in shenyu, and what we've experienced recently. This specific tactic alone has played out in 20 theaters this tour, which we're not even halfway through, we feel like we're at war right now. There were two Chinese spies. The FBI caught them in a sting operation. The Spy was trying to bribe what he thought was an IRS official to try to revoke Shen yun's nonprofit status. CCP, this whole time, trying to stop us, trying to cancel shows, trying to block advertising.

Petr Svab 46:09

The Chinese diplomat visiting the public library of Lima Peru, he is telling the audience not to go see a dance show called Shen Yun. The Chinese Embassy and delegation was actually pressuring the fear

Chuck Devore 46:22

whenever you have a group of people who trace their heritage to China, who do not directly owe their allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party.

John Lenczowski 46:32

That is a severe threat to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party, because it is a alternative narrative, a narrative rooted in history and truth.

Chuck Devore 46:44

Beijing sees it as an attack because Shen Yun is saying, No, take a look at it, because that's what China was before communism.

Peter Schweizer 46:55

They understand that the major threat to their regime is not economic. It is for what they used to call the hearts and minds of people. They see that as the sort of center of gravity under which their regime could be in trouble.

Leeshai Lemish 47:13

Got about 140 at this point, cases with evidence of the Chinese Communist Party going after shenyan. This is a tire slash in Costa Mesa, California. This is not a normal cut. This was done specifically with the purpose of the tire exploding on the highway, talking about a bus with 40 performers on it. This is very much an attempt on people's lives, in my opinion. You

Lucas Browde 47:57

We just arrived in Taiwan, and we're going straight into rehearsal. You go through first, 1020, 30 shows, you know, 4050, okay, we're getting somewhere. Once it passes like halfway point, 6070, it's hard. You

Lucas Browde 48:24

we know the importance of keeping each other going. I remember a few of us who were behind physically. We'd be like, what do we do? We're like, okay, let's wake up at like 530 in the morning and we're gonna run the lake. We are going to do extra cardio, have our own drills, grind it in. Like, sometimes I'd be like, I do not want to get up five in the morning. I am not going to wake up. And then my guy goes, come on, get up. We got to do this. You know? We got to stick to it. We go through a lot as a company on tour. This tour, I hit like a roadblock in my progression of dance. A lot of problems you face are actually Yourself. Yourself is actually one of the biggest roadblocks in life.

Training isn't actually just to improve your dance. It's actually to become a stronger person. Your brain and your heart thinks you can do it, your body can also

do it. Now. Okay, go, go, go, go. Next thing I know, I had 13 other brothers in the same class as me. Oh, my God,

Levi Browde 49:56

could literally get anything legit. There's this real resilience that they've built up. As a team. When just looking at the dynamic of them, they kind of are able to just shake stuff off. I can see them go through, like, a really, really rigorous week, and then a bunch of their friends will come over and we'll have a barbecue, and they're like, and it was just, it was grueling, what they just went through. And they have a way to kind of, like, get through things together like, you know what? I'm not gonna let this bother me. Put another steak on the barbecue. Let's go.

News SOTS

New at 11, a former dancer suing New York based Shen Yun Performing Arts, alleging this dance company subjected child performers to harsh conditions and low pay. November, a former dancer

51:00

filed this lawsuit and regularly deprived dancers from it.

Steve Lance

Suddenly, these lawsuits started coming out at Shen Yun something they've really never seen in the 20 years since they've come into existence, and within hours, the New York Times ran a follow up piece featuring these plaintiffs. I wanted to know if these lawsuits had any real legitimacy, so I reached out to Shen yun's lawyers.

Lea Patterson 51:30

When you read a headline that says Shen Yun and organizations have been sued for for human trafficking, right? That's a terrifying statement, but when you really look into it. That's not even what the complaint manages to lay out. The kinds of allegations of harm that we're seeing here are things like high school students who are minors being required to get permission if they leave the boarding school campus. That makes sense, right, right,

Justin Butterfield 51:57

limiting video game time and access to pornography, access to smartphones, versus flip phones, which they were allowed to have. You know, that's not human trafficking.

Lea Patterson 52:07

The plaintiffs persevered through multiple failed auditions over years. In fact, these plaintiffs continued to volunteer with a Schengen presenter for years. I don't know about you, if I'd had a terrible experience, I don't think I would continue to volunteer. Ultimately, they don't make out a viable legal claim at all. It essentially amounts to if your parents enroll you in a religious school and that school has rules that are consistent with the faith I was

Levi Browde 52:36

trying to understand. Where is this person coming from? Is there some truth to their accusations? You know, what's really going on? So I called up one of the professors at the college, how you doing? I said, you know, do you have any of these kids as students? Do you know anything about I said, Sure. And he came over. He showed me this ongoing conversation, you know, going for like, spending about three, and a half years were one of the primary accusers, Coco, who's the primary plaintiff in one of the lawsuits. It was eye opening to see this all written down very clearly, plain as day.

Professor Frank Gong 53:11

You know, when I'm sued, I was so shocked. I was speechless. I really don't know why she sued me. Then I go back, revisit all the conversations we had, because until April 2024, she was still very friendly to me. That's the photo she posted on her Facebook. And added a lot of good words about the school, about her experience. And then she invited me to Taiwan to attend her wedding ceremony. April 2024 she talked about her dance

Levi Browde 53:53

studio responses, yeah, very friendly.

Professor Frank Gong 53:55

Okay, that was April, right. She was contacting Shen Yun, saying that she wanted to come to see the company manager and other members. I don't know,

Levi Browde 54:05

like for someone to talk to, or

Professor Frank Gong 54:07

I don't know, I don't know, what's the intention just

Levi Browde 54:09

about the same time, yeah, yeah.

Professor Gong 54:11

And then she blocked me,

Levi Browde 54:16

and then she went on YouTube, like, what? Two months later, two months later, and that's the one I've heard. She's openly hostile, right?

Professor Frank Gong 54:23

Yeah, just everything changed.

Levi Browde 54:38

The plaintiffs who initiated the lawsuits did not bring these accusations against Shen Yun until after they had developed ties with the Beijing Dance Academy. And on Coco's Facebook page, she talks about working with the Beijing Dance Academy, which, despite its benign sounding name, is an organ of the Chinese government. It, and it's run by CCP officials, some of which have nothing to do with art and more about propaganda. That's a huge red flag. This is the same group of people who were interviewed by the New York Times. They are behind both the lawsuits and the media articles, the

Steve Lance 55:21

plaintiffs who initiated these lawsuits, they actually supported Shen Yun for years after they left, then after developing ties to Beijing, that's when their stance flipped. It's shocking that Beijing could use lawsuits in America to achieve its goals. What is the larger game at play here?

Jesse Browde 55:52

Honestly, I felt kind of bad for these people. Hurts me to see x genuine performers kind of in that position to kind of turn around and attack us like that. To me, it felt like an attack on my friend, not just my friends, my family, but also my

NEWS SOTS 56:11

home. Live. Look at the Kennedy Center. We've just gotten confirmation from the Kennedy Center that it was a bomb threat, a threat today,