Dancers for Shen Yun Performing Arts aspire to rejuvenate an ancient way of life. Principal dancer Jesse Browde believes a deep understanding of traditional Chinese culture is essential for successfully performing classical Chinese dance. He shares his story and what’s driving him to compete in NTD’s International Classical Chinese Dance Competition this year.
“My parents kind of wanted to get me out of the public school system. And so they sent me to a private art school in upstate New York,” said Mr. Browde. “It’s called Northern Academy of the Arts … They had three options, say you could be a dancer or a musician. Or you could be an artist as in a drawer or a painter, something like that. I chose dancer, because I had a couple friends in the school, and they kind of pushed me to be a dancer. So it wasn’t really out of my own will. I kind of just went along with it because my friends were there. But it was weird … the longer I spent dancing, the more I enjoyed it, I guess.”
“And then later the next year, I saw Shen Yun, the 2018 show. And I remember, I’d been watching Shen Yun since I was a kid, right, but this was the first time that I kind of actually understood the dances, especially the story ones. I almost cried a couple times that night. And I remember going home that night and I wanted to be a Shen Yun dancer. But as a 14-year-old.”
Mr. Browde was moved to become a dancer by the profound beauty of classical Chinese dance that many Shen Yun theatergoers are so familiar with. What has this ancient art form taught him?
“I learned a lot about the culture, actually, behind China. And before it was pretty much almost destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, it was 5,000 years of it. And it’s way more profound, way beyond anything that I had ever imagined or experienced, learning in the West. Because in the West, we learned about our history, Romans, the Greeks, and stuff like that, but … you can’t even compare to what Chinese culture is. And I guess to me, classical Chinese dance is a way to spread this culture to the world and these traditional values that so many people once held dear to them before the Communist Party took over, stuff like the Confucian values, ‘ren yi,’ ‘li zhi xing,’ right? It changes you as a person almost, like if you know these, if you get to learn these values, … it changes you.”
Students of classical Chinese dance study traditional Chinese culture and values to enrich their art. Here’s what Mr. Browde has to say about this fusion of form and philosophy.
“A lot of basic movements in classical Chinese dance are derived from a lot of principles in Chinese culture. For example, ‘yin yang ping heng,’ the balancing of opposites, that is huge in classical Chinese dance. As well, for example, it’s not just the balancing of strength and softness. It’s also slow and fast, left and right, up and down. Almost everything in Chinese classical dance is kind of based off of this principle. I guess through classical Chinese dance as well because what we portray on stage in Shen Yun, we have a lot of stories about ancient Chinese heroes, ancient Chinese culture, ancient Chinese life. You can’t really do this with any other art form. Only classical Chinese dance can really express what’s behind, what classical Chinese culture truly is.”
“Ancient Chinese culture is definitely a divinely inspired culture, right? And then when you believe that there’s this sort of higher being that’s bestowing these gifts upon you, sort of, it kind of humbles you in a way … it humbles you a lot, actually, because you know … that everything that I have, everything that basically I stand for is given to me almost. Sort of like in the Renaissance, all of the paintings and sculptures, they’re all glorifying the divine right? And that’s sort of what we’re doing here at Shen Yun. It’s, again, passing this divinely inspired message to the audience around the world.”
And how has studying classical Chinese dance changed Mr. Browde as a person?
“I learned to be more humble, I guess, and more grateful for everything I have. In the West, I grew up having a pretty comfortable life, … everything was handed to me, I didn’t really think, I took a lot of things for granted. But after coming here, after learning dance, learning the culture, I learned that nothing is … like everything is given to us by like, a higher being, you know, it humbles you in a way.”
Classical Chinese art contains the inner meaning of the culture. Mr. Browde grew up in the West. Did this affect his training at all?
“It did at first have had an impact because … we try to copy the movements, and then we try to copy exactly what the teacher does. But something’s, it’s like no matter how we try to copy it, how much we try to practice it, something’s off, something’s a bit off. And that’s when the Chinese culture part of it comes in. There’s so many principles of ancient Chinese culture that go into the dance. And so at first, I did struggle with this, growing up in the West, but I guess it’s a matter of how well you grasp the culture, … how much you want to grasp the culture, in a way. And I guess, once you slowly grasp it, slowly understand it, you’ll realize that it has changed you as a person.”
Becoming a principal dancer for Shen Yun Performing Arts is no easy task. Here are some of the challenges Mr. Browde encountered on his journey and how he handled the difficulty.
“Everyone has their own story on how they deal with their own hardships, for example, flexibility, stretching or strength, conditioning, or dancing. And then … sometimes you feel like you go through like long periods of time without getting, making much progress, you don’t see any hope, I guess to put it in an extreme way. I guess a lot of a lot of the times, … I kind of just have to sit myself down or with a friend or my brother or something. And then we just kind of talk about why we’re here and what we’re doing this for. We’re not just here to dance. We’re not just here to practice this art form, but we’re also trying to have a greater purpose. We’re trying to spread this culture to the people of the world and tell the truth of what’s happening in China—the persecution and stuff like that.”
And what’s Mr. Browde’s favorite dance move?
“There’s a flip, called ‘jian-zi zhi-ti’ round-off layout. … I remember when I watched Shen Yun as a kid, the only thing I wanted to I was … I saw the male dancers on stage and they were flipping, seemed like they were flying. And then it took me a while but after a few years, I sort of naturally found the feeling for the round-off layout. Feels like you’re flying.”
Mr. Browde won silver in the junior division of the 2021 NTD International Classical Chinese Dance Competition. He’ll be competing again this year. Here’s why he’s back for more.
“I decided to join the competition for a variety of reasons, actually. One is through the competition, you improve a lot because you’re practicing techniques, you’re practicing movements, and then you’re stringing them together in a two-minute technique piece, and you’re doing it over and over and over again. And so your strength, your dancing, your stamina will all improve greatly. And then, especially, this also goes for the story dance too, right? You have to prepare one story dance and one technique dance, right? And then through the story dance, your acting, your ‘biao xian li,’ or expressiveness, I guess will improve a lot. That’s one reason. Another reason is … it’s another opportunity to spread not just the culture, but this dance form itself to other people. Because a lot of people when they see Shen Yun, and they see: ‘Oh, these stories are amazing, these costumes are amazing. The movements are amazing.’ But a lot of times they don’t get to see the technical part of classical Chinese dance.”
Competitors in the NTD International Classical Chinese Dance Competition must perform a set of techniques for judges. They have to demonstrate their mastery of certain skills. Contestants also have to perform a piece based on traditional Chinese culture. Here’s what Mr. Browde chose in previous competitions.
“The first time, I portrayed the story of Yang Liulang from the famous novel ‘Yang Jia Jiang’ [The Generals of the Yang Family], and it’s pretty much a story of perseverance, loyalty in the face of hardship—just keep going, keep pushing. The message was pretty straightforward there, I guess. The second time, it was an in-school competition. And then, I didn’t really set a character, it was more a Chinese idiom. And there was a story behind that idiom was called ‘tou bi cong rong’ … if you translate it literally, ‘throwing down the pen and picking up the spear,’ it’s a bit more conflicted than the first dance. It’s pretty much about a scholar who, despite growing up as a scholar, despite living his life as a scholar, aspires to join the military, aspires to help his nation in ways that you cannot as a scholar, and then that was a bit more interesting because there was more internal conflict. That took me a while to get the acting part down for that. The movement parts are pretty easy, but the emotional transition was a lot more difficult.”
Mr. Browde says performing solo in the competition is very different from performing on stage during a Shen Yun tour with other performers.
“For a Shen Yun performance, you’re surrounded by people and you’re trying to do the same thing everybody else is, and it’s kind of like group effort, right? But for the competition, it’s completely different because it’s only you and it’s only you on stage for five minutes. And I guess the vibe is completely different because as a Shen Yun dancer and during a Shen Yun show, you kind of feel the group energy. And so you don’t really notice the audience or anybody else watching. But during the competition, it’s kind of like just you on stage and you have to kind of maintain absolute focus and … there’s nobody else on stage with you. And I guess that’s the main difference.”
Shen Yun dancers also take academic courses about Chinese history, Chinese language, and Chinese civilization.
“At first, I didn’t really understand the importance to dancing, because we were learning pretty basic stuff, like how to write characters, … grammar, stuff like that. But as I learned more and more about the history, about the characters, about the culture, about the poems that I had such trouble memorizing it … [it’s] hard to explain, it’s kind of like I could sort of feel it changing my dance in a way. And then I realized there’s so much culture to absorb before you can actually make this dance look like the best it can be.”
“Which I guess comes back to Shen Yun on stage. What are we portraying? Chinese culture. And then you can’t really do that unless you know the culture, right? So I guess for a lot of us born and raised in America or Canada or the West, it takes a lot longer to adjust.”
