NEW YORK CITY—When Levi Browde first heard about the bomb threats sent to a theater in Taiwan, worries whirled in his head.
His two sons were scheduled to perform there with Shen Yun Performing Arts.
Based in upstate New York, Shen Yun has performed for millions of audiences around the world over the past two decades, showcasing traditional Chinese culture under the banner “China before communism.”
And the Browde family has seen it first hand.
The film premiered in Manhattan’s AMC Lincoln Square on Tuesday evening to a full house.
The film crew didn’t know how far they would go with the project at the beginning. It started off with a special report, and evolved over time as more findings came to light, said executive producer Steve Lance.
As the team asked questions, followed the performers to different venues, and watched them train, the work took on a life of its own, he said.
On the one side, there’s been this “very sophisticated, all-encompassing, full-spectrum influence campaign coming out of China, all to target this group,” he told The Epoch Times. “Yet, here they are, 20 years later, unbroken. That was sort of the conclusion that we came to.”
Lance recalled watching the performers set up the stage on the day of their performance during a 2025 Lincoln Center show. They were doing a warm-up routine.
“Next thing you know, all 10 or 12 dancers on stage in unison, their legs go straight up over their heads 90 degrees, and they hold it there,” he said. The level of focus and the passion he saw in their eyes, he said, made him see how this group is different.
“These aren’t people that are trying to make a name for themselves,” he said.
New York City Council member Phil Wong at the premiere brought two proclamations, one from him and another from his predecessor Robert Holden, who didn’t get to present it during his term. It’s a double celebration for the art company’s 20th anniversary, he and his staffer said.
“They love what they do. The choreography is just perfect,” Wong told The Epoch Times about Shen Yun, adding that the group has “done so much” to preserve an art form almost lost.
At the red carpet, Shen Yun dancers showcased a rainbow of colorful handmade costumes that drew inspiration from ancient dynasties. They hope to bring the audience another side of Shen Yun that often doesn’t get the limelight, they said.
‘Battle in Our Backyard’
The Browde family likened their experience to being on the front lines of a battle.“We all feel the pressure,” Browde told The Epoch Times.
The battle didn’t start in the United States. It began when the Chinese Communist Party launched a nationwide persecution against practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
The campaign was systematic, combining hate propaganda, financial pressure, mass arrests, and torture, in an all-out effort to crush the practice. Untold numbers of practitioners have been killed, including through forced organ harvesting to fuel the regime’s lucrative transplantation industry.
From around the world, a group of artists came together in 2006 with the hope of shining a spotlight on the Chinese regime’s human rights abuses and reviving China’s cultural heritage, creating what became known as Shen Yun.
From the company’s inception, the regime has been determined to put it down, using diplomatic and financial levers in attempts to pressure hosting countries and theaters—sometimes successfully. However, over the past few years, Beijing’s efforts have escalated further.
Meanwhile, over a dozen stories attacking Shen Yun and Falun Gong began appearing in The New York Times.
Browde, whose whole family have been New York Times readers since the Eisenhower days, said he almost felt “betrayed” seeing those stories.
“It is by far the best example in my own life of the failure of the Times to cover news properly,” he said.
Browde, who runs the Falun Dafa Information Center to draw attention to the plight of Falun Gong practitioners in China, said he has lived through the most difficult time as he sees the campaign getting increasingly personal.
“It’s sort of like there’s two theaters to this war,” he said. Raising awareness on persecution in a far-off land is hard enough, “but now we have to deal with the campaign that’s here in America trying to silence us, intimidate us, and, perhaps most importantly, convince other people they shouldn’t listen to us.”
“It feels much more of a battle in our backyard.”
‘Fighting the Good Fight’
Many among the audience on Wednesday professed shock after walking out from the screening.“Shen Yun is a portrait of an ancient society that has been dismantled and broken down by a regime that didn’t believe in freedom,” TV producer Maria Cavenaghi told The Epoch Times. “The first thing that the dictator does is to silence culture, to silence the voices of people.”
Actress and model Kimberly Magness described the documentary as “surreal.”
“The bomb threats, the tire slashing, the fact that there were all these attacks and Chinese spies—like I had no idea about any of this,” she told The Epoch Times. Her favorite moment from the film was when one of the dancers said that their mind was what holds them back, which she relates to as a performer, she said. “The fact that they persevered through all of this, and they still perform, and they still make this magic happen, it says so much.”
She said she hopes to meet the artists to show support.
“They are such strong people, inside and out,” she said.
Actor Thomas Copeland, also based in New York, likewise expressed admiration for the performers’ drive. He encouraged the artists to “keep fighting the good fight.”
“Everybody deserves freedom,” he said.
Difficult it may be, the artists and their families said they are forging ahead.
“We’re giving a voice to ... peoples of belief in China who have no voice,” Browde’s elder son, Jesse, told NTD ahead of the event. It is “much bigger than myself,” he said.
