The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unveiling Shen Yun: Chinese Dance, Culture, and Controversy

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Unveiling Shen Yun: Chinese Dance, Culture, and Controversy Shenyun.com Leeshailemish.com About the Guest(s): Leeshai Lemish serves as the MC and podcast host for the Shen Yun Performing Arts, a globally renowned classical Chinese dance and music company. Having joined the company at its inception in 2006, Lemish has emceed nearly 2,000 performances in prestigious venues worldwide, including Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the London Coliseum. Lemish is also a dedicated activist, documenting over 100 cases of alleged Chinese Communist Party interference with Shen Yun. In addition to his performance and advocacy work, he hosts the podcast "Shen Yun Voices," giving voice to the stories behind the team. Episode Summary: In this insightful episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss welcomes Leeshai Lemish, MC and podcast host for Shen Yun Performing Arts. The episode delves into Shen Yun's mission to revive 5,000 years of authentic Chinese culture, a task complicated by censorship from the Chinese Communist Party, which opposes representations of China that predate its rule. With gripping revelations about the struggles and triumphs of performing this culturally rich art form globally, Lemish sheds light on the enduring spirit and creative journey of Shen Yun. The podcast moves through the company's origins to its spectacular stages across the world, emphasizing the transformative power of Shen Yun's classical Chinese dance and music. Lemish shares personal anecdotes, revealing the arrests and threats that employees like him face from Chinese authorities due to Shen Yun's message, which prioritizes cultural authenticity and spiritual freedom. This episode resonates with powerful themes of art, resilience, and truth, all underscored by the threat posed to art that defies modern political narratives. Key Takeaways: Shen Yun Performing Arts is dedicated to reviving traditional Chinese culture, showcasing it globally, and highlighting the conditions under which the current Chinese regime operates. Artistic expression through Shen Yun is not merely about performance but also preserving a cultural lineage that the Communist Party has attempted to eliminate. The perceived threat by Shen Yun to the Chinese Communist Party has led to a series of alleged sabotage attempts, including threats to performers and partnering venues worldwide. Leeshai Lemish's involvement with Shen Yun reflects a greater commitment to spiritual practices and understanding Chinese culture while confronting censorship. Despite political pressure and threats, Shen Yun continues to perform worldwide, embracing global support and continuing its mission to educate and inspire through art. Notable Quotes: "They're very afraid of that because to establish their legitimacy, they felt that they had to wipe it out." "Maybe there's something I could do about this. I actually, in 2001 went to China and meditated in public and was immediately arrested." "This idea of reclaiming virtue to put it in a kind of metaphysical way of reclaiming integrity." "If you control the press. And, and so that was in 2001. And at the time we really didn't know." "Knowing that I learned the lesson to know unless you find you're giggling and caroling us can't have Kansas fighting rotting this of sunshine muggles." Join Chris Voss and Leeshai Lemish in this riveting episode that goes beyond the stage and highlights the immense cultural and political landscapes that Shen Yun navigates. Tune in to the full episode for a deeper understanding of the beauty, challenges, and inspirations that influence Shen Yun's global journey. Stay tuned for more from The Chris Voss Show, bringing you transformative conversations with extraordinary visionaries.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster

with your brain. Now here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, it's Voss here from theekrisvossshow.com. Theekrisvossshow.com. Hey, is anyone there? At least that makes official welcome to 16 years. We have over 2400 episodes of The Chris Voss Show. We the Tik Tokity and all those other crazy places on the interwebs in the sky. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily

reflect the opinions of the host or the ChrisFos show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we're going to talk about a wonderful young man, Leisha Lemish. He is the emcee and podcast host for Shenyang Performing Arts. We're going to get some of the details of what they do over there and how they do it. He has been with Shenyang for 18 years, joining Shenyang Performing Arts as an

MC when the company was founded in 2006. He's since MC'd close to 2000 performances with the company, taking stage at prestigious theaters, such as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the London Coliseum, Tokyo Opera City and many others worldwide. In addition to his performance role, he is tracked and documented on his website over 100 cases of the Chinese Communist Party and its agents trying to sabotage Shenyang internationally. He has testified on transnational repression in front of Congress,

and has been a featured guest on television, radio shows around the world, and is a host of the podcast, Shen Yun Voices, interviewing many of the cast members. Welcome to the show, sir, how are you? I'm great, thanks for having me. Thanks for coming, we really appreciate it. Give us your dot coms.

Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Shen Yun, you can find us at ShenYun.com. That's S-H-E-N-Y-U-N.com. If you want to learn more about the show and the performers, the artists, why they do what they do, the mission, I would go to ShenYunPerformingArts.org. That's where we have more of that. And then the podcast you just mentioned, thank you very much for bringing that up. Shen Yun Voorg. That's where we have more of that. And then the podcast you just mentioned, thank you very much for bringing that up.

Shenyun Voices, that's on YouTube, it's on all the different podcast platforms. And so give us a 30,000 overview of what you guys do there and what the company's about. Yeah, so you might've seen the billboards for Shenyun. They're everywhere this time of year when we're performing. Shenyun is the world's top classical Chinese dance and music company.

And the company has a mission, which is to bring back 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, to show the China before communism. And to do that, we had to be established in New York. This cannot be done inside of China. So while it is a performance of Chinese culture and dance and music, it is not from China. In fact, we cannot perform in China.

Most of our artists are ethnic Chinese. Many of them actually came from China. Even some of them escaped persecution in China. Some of them have lost family members there. Some of them have family languishing in prisons there still. And they came to the US with this mission of bringing back this heritage that has been mostly destroyed under the Chinese Communist Party in China. And for that reason, as you mentioned, the CCP really does not like us and has been trying to stop us the entire

time. That's your 30,000 foot overview of the big picture of what we're doing. So people, what do people see when they attend the events and what is the main focus of the event? So Shen Yun is a dance and music production. It's about two hours long plus an intermission. And it's not one narrative. It's not like you go and you see the marriage of Figaro and it's one story. This is about 20 different vignettes, each about four or five minutes long.

And they tell different stories, different legends, or they celebrate different traditions, ethnic and folk traditions. So for example, this year, we're at the tail end of our 2025 tour. The show begins with a creation legend of how Chinese civilization came to be coming down from the heavens to earth and into the palaces. And then we have a classical Chinese dance piece

and a water sleeves piece, very feminine and beautiful. And we have Journey to the West with the Monkey King and Pigsy and these other colorful characters. And then we even have a story about what's happening in China today. And so as an MC, I come on between the pieces, I introduce the next story, so you don't need to know anything about the culture and really the dance and music do most of the communication because it's such a universal language. of the communication because it's such a universal language. Pete Slauson Mm hmm. You know, I was seeing recently, I was seeing recently, it's 2025 folks in April, I was seeing recently one of the Chinese, I guess, spokespeople for the Communist Party talking about how China's been here for 5,000

years, will be here for 5,000 more years. And as most people know, if, well, just people are educated know the Chinese think in 5D chess, they think 5,000 years out. And, but so why, why the controversy? Does it is, is, does this, the current Chinese government, the communist government, just why, why do they want to bury that art form? It seems like that would be part of your heritage. Yeah. I mean, what a missed opportunity for them. When this Warming Arts Company came and was established with the mission of bringing back the lost culture, instead of welcoming that, embracing and promoting it, they've been trying to stop us the whole time. And so go back to that comment from the CCP official.

They like to make claim to the 5,000 years of civilization. But the fact is, if you look at history, what happened in the last century when Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party came to power, the first thing they set out to do was cut off Chinese people from their heritage. And so they had campaigns like the Cultural Revolution where they burned books, they raised temples to the ground, they made monks and nuns marry each other. They cut off all the people with advanced education. You were not allowed to listen to anything that was traditional.

Read these traditional stories. And those who did were struggled against and often sent to labor camps or killed. And in the process of all these campaigns, one after another, the Four Olds and all the anti-rightist campaigns, all these things, they killed 60 to 80 million people and this is the you know now if you compare it to Hitler or Paul Pot or Stalin he outshines everybody in this category and this continues all the way you know through the Tiananmen Square massacre, through the persecution of Falun Gong, through what's happening to Uighurs, all these different issues and And so they like to say, look, we have 5,000 years of civilization. Yeah, but you actually brought in Marxism, communism, militant atheism, utilitarianism, all these various isms. And to make room for that, you try to

wipe out this entire civilization, which is what we in the West think of as Chinese culture. We don't think of the PRC flag as an embodying... We think of Kung Fu and we think of as Chinese culture. We don't think of the PRC flag as a embodying, we think of Kung Fu and we think of Chinese food and we think of the great music and the stories and the legends and Taoism and journey to the West and these kinds of things that really embody Chinese culture. And so that's what Chin-Yun is bringing back. And they're very afraid of that because

to establish their legitimacy, they felt that they had to wipe it out. The other part of the story is, I mentioned Falun Gong earlier, it's a meditation discipline that's being practiced and was practiced in the 90s by about 100 million people in China. And one day the Chinese Communist Party leader at the time, Jiang Zemin, woke up and said, there's too many people doing this. This is more than we have members of the Chinese Communist Party. He decided to ban it.

And in 1999 launched this brutal persecution that's now lasted 25 years. It saw millions of people sent to labor camps and prisons and people being tortured to death and even people being killed for their organs. And this is going on still today. Shen Yun was founded by people who experienced this persecution, by Falun Gong practitioners. And they, some of them themselves, torture victims, some of them who had family in labor camps and they said Let's as part of the performance also show what is happening under the ccp in china And so every year we have a dance or two that tells that story and of course, this is a atrocity The the chinese communist party leaders is pretending does not exist and has spent all these Years and all these billions of dollars trying to bury it up

And cover it up with propaganda and with You know not allowing access to journalists and so for these two reasons They really don't like Shen you and then they've done a whole host of things to try to stop us from performing Wow, that is crazy. I mean that is wild, you know, it's a what are you gonna do? I mean it the truth is what it and it's such a I mean such a beautiful art form But yeah, it's just, you kind of see some of the things that were going on today in our culture in America here, where we're blasting anybody who's educated, we're blasting science, we're blasting the

universities, you know, it's your classic authoritarianism where someone is saying that, hey, I don't, you know, I don't want to take and, you know, have the smart people educating people. We don't want people dumb. In fact, we just announced that we're going to shut down the free press of, what is it, I forget what it is, but it's the PBS and all that sort of stuff that's paid for by community service. So shutting off the minds and de-educating people, I mean, it only helps them put them

better in control. Sounds like you guys learned that lesson from the Chinese over there, the government, the communist government. What was the question I had for you? What inspired you in your journey to becoming an MC for them? And how was your experience shaped on your perspective of Chinese culture and performing arts? Matthew 11 Yeah, I mean, this is not something I dreamt of doing as a kid. I wasn't into acting or into performing or anything. I was a baseball player and that's what I wanted to be. And my parents are both academics and I was kind of going in that career route.

But then I became interested actually in Eastern philosophy and then meditation. And that's how I got drawn to Chinese spiritual practices. And that's how I was introduced to Falun Gong and started this meditation discipline. And then I heard this was around 2001, what was happening to people just like me in China. And so I said, you know what, maybe there's something I could do about this. And actually in 2001, I went to China and I meditated in public and I was immediately arrested, beaten up. Really?

Yep. And then kicked out of the country and along with other people from all over the world. And I was put on a plane and I had a dislocated jaw at this point. And next to me is sitting another man from Canada with two broken fingers, a guy with a broken nose, broken ribs. And they give us the China Daily, which is the English mouthpiece, the newspaper of the Chinese regime. And in the back pages, it had this article,

it said, a group of foreigners were sent by the CIA and other anti-China forces to embarrass China. They were treated well, put in a hotel and sent back. And I'm sitting, I'm looking around, I paid for my own ticket. I don't know a single person who is in the CIA. We're all injured here. I don't even have my shoes.

And wow, I was like, this is so easy to lie to people if you can tell the press. And so that was in 2001. And at the time we really didn't know, I mean, millions of people are being persecuted in China and nobody seemed to care in the West. The press wasn't reporting on it, the journalists seemed to have been bought out

or at least threatened enough that they would lose their visas and access to China if they reported on this, with a couple of exceptions. Around 2006, some of these artists who were following the practitioners, they said, we have these skills in performing arts. These were top choreographers, composers, dancers, and musicians from leading companies in China. Now, they were in the States, Australia, Canada, all over the world.

They said, what can we do with our skills? Let's put on this production. And one of them back in Los Angeles, when I was studying, invited me to MC a show and I did it and cracked some jokes in Chinese and then later from the radio, city music hall. And then this was all pre-shen yun. These were just like holiday galas, local performances. But then in 2006, they said, let's do this for real.

Let's actually create a company and let's train the next generation of dancers with schools and let's build this and really bring back this culture and tour every year with a whole new production. We tour about four or five months a year. And so I joined the company that very first year and I saw us grow from a bunch of people, training in a tent outside, sleeping in sleeping bags

and figuring things out as we go to then a second company the next year, a third company the next year. Now we have eight companies. We toured all these theaters that you mentioned like Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and we're at the top places around the world. It's a household name at this point. But actually at the Kennedy Center this year, we're performing there on set up day. So we're getting ready for our first show.

In the morning, the fire alarm goes off and we're told to evacuate the building. And we thought it's just a drill, but then this guy came on the loudspeaker and said, this is not a drill, evacuate immediately. And the way they were pushing us out from the building looked to me like, this was like either there's a bomb or an active shooter, the urgency and the commitment

of the security people there to get us out. And we went outside, it was like either there's a bomb or an active shooter. The urgency and the commitment of the security people there to get us out. And we went outside, it was like 20 degree weather and they evacuated the entire complex, multiple buildings, six different performing arts companies, hundreds of people just standing outside in DC and nobody knew what was happening. But I did because this was, we received the bomb threat.

Kennedy Center received the bomb threat targeting Shen Yun performing arts. And this is, yeah, this is part of a trend. And you mentioned I document a hundred cases. I actually have over 150 at this point, just over the last couple months of tour. It just exploded so much. Wrong term talking about bomb threats.

But yeah, so we got over 40 of these, over 40 different theaters in which we were scheduled and did perform this year, received bomb threats theaters in which we were scheduled and did perform this year, received bomb threats saying, if you allow Shen Yun to perform, we will blow this place to rubble. Honolulu, just a few days ago, received a threat saying, if you allow Shen Yun to perform, the family members of staff members in the theater are going to have inexplicable accidents and houses will burn down.

They threatened our kids that they're going to throw them off a building and rape our daughters. It just goes on and on. We've gotten in our headquarters, over a hundred of these kinds of threats already. And this is just one part. And recently in Taiwan, the Taiwanese Criminal Investigation Department there was able to trace these threats

to the Huawei Research Institute in Xi'an, China. Up until that point, nobody that we're aware of in the US, because we do report all this to the police and to the FBI, nobody has actually been able to identify it, but they pinpointed it to Huawei, which we know is under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. This is just one tactic. We've had tires slashed on our buses in a way that they would not have been if late, but actually exploded high speeds. It's happened multiple times in multiple buses and several of our trucks.

We've had our websites hacked. We've had Chinese consulate and embassy officials going to theaters in America, trying to get them to cancel the show, to nullify our contracts. We've had hit pieces in media and we've had spies that have been caught actually in sting operations by the FBI trying to revoke our nonprofit status and trying to start all kinds of frivolous lawsuits against us. It just goes on and on. They've tried paying social media influencers to run videos attacking Shen Yun. They talked about getting the mainstream media into the New York Times to attack

Shen Yun. It's just a whole campaign of this massive dictatorship going against an American-based performing arts company. Wow. I guess we'll look for the comments on our YouTube video for the Chris Voss show. You might get what there's this thing called the 50 cent army. I don't know if you heard of this, but it's wumao in Chinese. I guess they get paid 50 cents. I don't know if it's per post or per hour, but basically they're paid to make these posts online attacking wherever the CCP is against and just bombarding them. Yeah, so you'll see that kind of stuff on Yelp or on social media for sure. They spend a lot of time trying to Russia and I think it's North Korea spends a lot

of time trying to hack the Chris Voss show. We get slammed pretty hard. Yeah, we get slammed really. Congratulations. That's a good sign, I think. Yeah. I don't know why. That's a good sign, I think. Yeah. I don't know why there's nothing on there. You know, we don't keep any state secrets or anything like that.

You might, I don't know, you might see some pictures of some books because we have authors on but yeah, education is bad. We've actually had someone who was an escape Uyghur on the show who wrote a book. So I guess we're just making friends. I guess I won't be visiting China anytime soon, which is fine with me because I hear the internet speeds suck. To Taiwan, you can see a lot of the traditional Chinese culture, which is preserved better in Taiwan than it has in China. That's when I studied Chinese, I went to study abroad in Taiwan. A,

I was blacklisted in China for having gone to Tiananmen Square, as I mentioned, but at the same time, yeah, in China, so when the communist party took over, it was kind of the beginning period, they simplified the Chinese script. So these pictographic characters that we see, you know, all over the place in Chinatown, let's say, or in movies, they have a lot of inner meaning. But they basically simplified them with the justification being this can allow more people to easily learn the language. But in Taiwan, they preserved it. And so you look at a Chinese character, an example for instances, the word to listen, ting in Chinese, the simplified version has got like a little square and other squiggly line. The traditional version has different

what we call radicals, which are components of the word. One of them symbolizes king. Another one symbolizes virtue and another one symbolizes ear and there's also heart in there. So the idea is that the virtuous king listens with his heart. There's a lot of inner meaning in there and just this one word that you have to write every time you say listen to something. And then this goes on, there's a lot of examples like that. So in Taiwan and we perform in Taiwan, we have about 40 sold out shows in Taiwan every year where we're signing autographs at the airport, treat like rock stars over there. It's so different. And people from China who can afford to actually fly to Taiwan just to see Shen Yun. And they say, we cannot see traditional Chinese culture in China. We found that here in Taiwan, in LA, in New York, when they see Shen Yin. Pete Wow. That's amazing. Now, I mean, does the Shen Yin have anything to do with the

Fei Long Gong? Is it all people who belong to that organization or is it part of it? Is that one of the big things they're angry about? Jai Absolutely, yeah. So, it was founded by Falun Gong practitioners, the company, the people in the company practice Falun Gong. We have like daily meditation sessions that we do together as a group or alone. It's part of our lifestyle and the principles of the practice of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance also are a big part of kind of the guiding morality of the company and our kind of mission. And a big part is,

so Falun Gong comes to this very traditional Chinese world, right? This idea is actually a practice that was passed down from master to disciple for many generations and has this idea of what's called self-cultivation, self-refining or spiritual cultivation, which is a big part of, you know, Taoist traditions, Buddhist traditions, and even Confucius traditions. And so in that way, it's very much connected to this heritage. And we have dances about it, one or two every year in the production, you know, out of 20. It's not the majority, but it's definitely a significant part. And it shows what's happening to people like us who practice meditation in a park one day

and are thrown into a labor camp and maybe tortured to death the next day. But at the same time, it's got this uplifting message of hope. All of our dances, our production overall has got this just tremendous uplifting energy. I think that's what really resonates with people, even if they're not Chinese or are not specifically interested in Chinese culture, is the virtues behind the stories. They're really about loyalty and courage, integrity and faith and compassion. And I think that's what really inspires people. So people come to the show, they're thinking they're going to be entertained and they are learn something about other culture and they certainly will, but it's really, they leave it and just that they're glowing.

They're just inspired with new ideas, which I think they weren't really expecting coming to see a dance and music production. Pete Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's such a beautiful display of stuff. I love ballet and dance and the arts and stuff. I'm not sure I fully get them because I'm a little, I've gotten too much testosterone evidently. But I just, but I still get the beauty of it and the storyline and playing along and stuff. I'm not familiar enough with the dance to understand what everything is going on, but I need to work on that. But yeah, it's interesting the persecution that comes from this because, you know, being meditative is so subversive to any government.

Yeah. Or basically, the problem is you're thinking for yourself, I guess. Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's what you do in your show here. You're trying to get people to thank you. You're having smart people, I guess, for the most part, smart people on the show who are talking with very different ideas. Right. And that's what I think a lot of the successful podcasts are the top ones. That's what they're able to do is challenge people.

And a communist regime does not want that. And the thing is, just to be fair, Falun Gong was not challenging the regime until it started getting persecuted. There were party members practicing Falun Gong. They did not see this as a conflict or any sort of contradiction. They go in the morning to a park to do some meditation.

They try to be good people. They go to work. This is actually beneficial. And again, what a missed opportunity for the communist party. Here are people getting healthier and moral, and then you decide to make them your enemy. And then not only have you removed some of the best people

in your country from the workforce or from their families, now you also have created an enemy that is not going away because people found something they believe in, and now they're distributing flyers, and eventually basically about five years into the persecution, Falun Gong practitioners said, it's not enough to just talk about how badly we're being persecuted.

We need the Chinese people to understand what the Communist Party has done to China. What it's done, how it's killed 80 million people, how it's destroyed our traditions, how it has kind of infiltrated our minds with this thing called party culture and the struggle mentality of not trusting other people and just by hook or, by crook,

you know, taking advantage of others for your own gain and this kind of mindset. They said we have to undo this. So actually they published this thing called the nine commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party, which you can see online. I think there's a video version of it too. And they start distributing this across China and caught like wildfire and then that started another campaign called the quit the CCP party which is people saying I hereby proclaim that I want nothing to do with the Chinese Communist Party. There were party members who did this, there were people who were not but they were part of let's say the young pioneers of the Communist Youth League and they said I don't want to go down in history with this sinking ship. I want it to be known that I made this statement that I'm not part of this regime that has been so abusive and taken advantage of us. And so yeah, that's

basically what these people are up against. And it looks on the surface like it's, you know, meditators up against, you know, the tanks and all of the surveillance technology that they have now. But it's really a battle, I think, of reclaiming virtue, to put it in a kind of metaphysical way, of reclaiming integrity. And when people find that and it resonates with them, that's a powerful force. Pete Slauson What first drew you to Chinese history, learning the language and all that stuff? Was it that search for meditation?

Or you grew up with, I've saw some of that stuff around, but it wasn't, it wasn't like something I was really drawn to as a kid. It was really through baseball and I was a pitcher and I got really interested in the mental side of the game. And there wasn't a lot of back then, maybe 30 years ago, there wasn't a lot of coaching about mental performance and, and visualization and focus and, and how do you gain, gain confidence and how do you have a better understanding of the game and how do you, how do you, how do of coaching about mental performance and visualization and focus and how do you gain confidence and how do you have this kind of tunnel vision

and get in the zone. But then I started getting into that a little bit through the couple of books that were out there about baseball mentality. And I felt like I could really, there's this whole other level. I would meditate, I was the one guy competing internationally with the baseball team and I would meditate before the game. And then I'd visualize ninth inning, you know, three,

two count bases loaded. What am I going to throw? And then I get into the game and it'd be the same situation. And I was about to throw the pitch and I was like, I've been here before. It was like watching a movie that you've seen and you get to the peak of the movie and you're excited that you know, what's going to happen. Cause you've, you've seen it. And then that basically opened my mind to say, if our mind in the meditation world can really do that much in baseball, what else is out there? Like for longevity, for world peace. I was young, I had these kinds of ideas in terms of making the most out of my life and being able to contribute to others. And so that led me on this quest towards, which led me eventually to Falun Gong

and the meditation discipline. And then I learned about that. So I better learn the language if I'm gonna understand what I'm talking about, what the teachings are about and communicate with all these people. And also, you know, there's this human rights crisis in China.

If I speak Chinese, I would learn more about Chinese history and Chinese politics and all this stuff. I'll be able to be more informed about that. And that led me down this path, which I went first academically and then later with Shin Yun. Pete Over, let's see here, over 20 countries yearly, you guys travel and perform at 200 cities yearly, 10 million people have been delighted by the show. I mean, there is something beautiful. I mean, I even like watching some of the dances that North Koreans do. You know, it's interesting to see people's cultures, how they live life. That's one of

the reasons I have a podcast is I love seeing people's lives, hearing their stories and, you know, realizing that there's different flavors in the world and you can learn from them. And, you know, you can be like, Oh, wow, I didn't think of that. And, you know, there's so much beauty in the world too, to see. I mean, you go see beautiful performances, beautiful sunsets, beautiful oceans, you know. There's so much beauty to consume in the world. And so, I think it's great what you guys are doing and putting up the good fight. Guys, it's just amazing how, do most of the attacks that you guys find, are those, I think you mentioned local US cities, but do you find those more when you travel internationally or think you mentioned local US cities, but do you find those more when you

travel internationally or when you're local? Matthew 18.30 No, the bomb threats have been just across the board, all over, like San Jose, Atlanta, Waterbury, Connecticut, San Antonio, Worcester, those are just some of the cities I've been to this year. And then the trying to pressure theaters to cancel the shows, that doesn't seem to work for Chinese ambassadors in the US. Because, you know, you can't tell us what we can and cannot watch. You know, this is not China, go away.

And it ends up promoting our show. You tell a councilman from Los Angeles, don't see the show. They're like, well, let me go check it out. I remember when we were performing in Australia, it's true in strong democracies. We were in Canberra in the capital. And I came out after the show and I was just walking on the front steps. I bumped into two people and said, hey, nice show. You know, we're from Parliament.

We all got a letter telling us to not see the show. So we all showed up. We had a quorum. We could have passed legislation. We had so many of us here today. You know, so that really feels. But in Eastern European countries, in South Korea, places that are more susceptible to CCP corruption and pressure, sometimes we do have shows that are canceled.

Not in the U.S. And also I want to mention about the bomb threats so people aren't scared. They're all, these are pranks, right? There's never actually been anything. And we, every time we have the police is informed, the sniff dogs come, they do all their things. There's never anything at all.

And we always still perform. But yeah, you talk about the beauty, you know, classical Chinese dance, and you mentioned North Korean dance, classical Chinese dance is very, very different from ballet. If you see like some of our trailers or you go online and see some of our videos, like on our website that I mentioned, chin.com, you see that it's actually in some ways closer to Chinese martial arts. And that's not an accident. The word in Chinese for martial arts, the wu in wushu, is the same

pronunciation as the wu in wudao, which means dance. So these two words, wu and wu, pronounce exactly the same but written differently. They hint at the fact that these have a common origin. And when one of them went towards a fighting technique, it became martial arts. And the other one went towards a performance technique became classical Chinese dance. So back in the day in the Emperor's Palace, the generals would perform these dances with swords and spears that were brought from the battlefield and became dance. And so it's very, very athletic. It's very, very beautiful. And a lot of those techniques

have been borrowed and actually used in gymnastics and acrobatics and cheerleading and other art forms. And people don't even realize they actually come from classical Chinese dance and have a history of thousands of years. Pete Slauson Oh, wow. I was just watching one of the videos and yeah, the colors and the brightness and the movement are just extraordinary. They just stand out to you, and they're so positive too. You're like, wow, cool last colors and people dancing well. Pete It's hard to find things that are that positive, you know, in day to day life. Maybe you have a friend or you have a good restaurant that you go to that gives that positive vibe.

You know, a lot of the movies and performances are dark and they have these kind of scary, you know, creepy dooms kind of scenario kind of feel to it. And Shenuna is not that. It's about, no, it's going to be okay. You know, hold on to tradition, hold on to kindness. It's a very simple message, but it's all, you know, you do that, you'll be fine. The world will be fine. Pete Slauson Mm hmm. You know, I was going to joke, I was going to say the costumes are way more positive than the costumes on La Mis. But you know, that's kind of the story. But yeah, what haven't I asked you about that we should, our audience should know about and what you guys do? What am I missing? Or if I'm missing anything. I mean, it's been a great conversation.

I would say we have our tour goes from December to May. So we're wrapping up now. I can't believe it's already almost the end of this first, this tour now, but we have a new production every year. So every year we come back, we have a vacation, and then we start putting on next year's production. I think also one of the things that we have

that's kind of unique is that we have a program that allows students in a couple of schools that are affiliated. One is a high school called Faitian Academy of the Arts, and one is a college called Faitian College. It allows students who are very talented there in these performing arts schools to go on what's called a practicum

and actually tour with the company and perform and see the world, and they're on full scholarship, and they have all their expenses paid, and they tour with the company and perform and see the world and they're on full scholarship and they have all their expenses paid and they get to train with the best dancers in the world. These really are some of the world's top classical Chinese dancers here that I get to see every day. And that's a really cool thing. There's been some confusion about that in the media about how come you have young people. That's where that comes from. These are people who are students. They're not paid because they're like NCAA athletes. They're in paid because they're like NCAA athletes.

They're in school. But once they get that experience and they graduate, they can join the company and then they're professionals and they're on salary and everything else. That's a unique element in the company. We have eight groups that are touring around the world at the same time. It's a really nice kind of career path for people who want it. Dance is rigorous and it's a really nice kind of career path for people who want it. And dance is rigorous and it's very athletic and it's a little bit like being an athlete for these people.

And it's pretty amazing all the flips that they have and the repertoire and all the various flexibility movements that they do. But they get a lot of joy. I think that what drives our performers, especially the dancers who were out there on the front line of the stage every day, is this idea of reviving a lost culture, giving voice to the people in China who don't have a voice and sharing a positive and uplifting message with the audience. And you see it from the audience, you get that love back every day when you see the standing ovations at the end of the show.

I mean, God, who can't appreciate great beauty and great stories? I think it's also a testament to how important free speech is in our country and other parts of the democratic world. Being able to perform these ways and to have dissenting voices against other oppressive sort of regimes and stuff like that. And so there's a variety of things people can choose from and enjoy. You guys have the podcast. What do you guys talk about on the podcast? Yes, this is something I started last year. It's called Shen Yun Voices. And I just wanted to give our dancers and our musicians and some of the behind the scenes people a chance

to express themselves verbally. You see them perform, but you don't really know who these people are and what their life is like and what ideas they have. And so I started interviewing them. And I talked to some people, I talked to like a doctor who deals with some of the injuries that the dancers have. I talked to some of the kind of early days performers and some of the musicians and a couple that's, two musicians who tour at the company. I said, what is it like being a couple where you're both performing?

And so that's something we started and I really enjoyed. I hope to continue with that maybe next year after tour. It's pretty amazing. You know, the beauty of these engagements are just so amazing. Do people when they're, that was the other thing I was going to say, I was riffing on your podcast. Years ago, we did a, I own a mortgage company and we did loans for, we were in Las Vegas was one of our offices.

We did loans for the Act, I Las Vegas, was one of our offices. We did loans for the act, I don't know what you call them, I think they have a certain title, but the people who work at the Cirque du Soleil thing. And yeah, we got talking to people and the amount of injuries that people have on an activity like this is crazy. Yeah. In classical Chinese dance, I think it's a lot less. I mean, first of all, they're not performing at great heights. There's not a lot of ropes and things like that involved. They're mostly on the floor, except for when they do a flip. But yeah, flips usually, and one thing I didn't realize is

when people do injure themselves, let's say an Achilles injury, it's similar to the basketball injury, because I always thought it was when they land, they land funny. It's actually not as when they push off the ground to leap, and then maybe a tendon will snap. that's that's really where it is and You know Kobe Bryant, of course had one that insisted on staying and playing after it snapped

In classical Chinese dance, a lot of the movements are actually very natural for the body. So you see the dancers They don't have this they have the very lean and flexible and athletic But they don't have bulging muscles in their legs like you might see with a ballet dancer. And the reason is it uses a lot of the same kind of muscles that you would in daily life and it's very kind of goes with the flow of nature, so to speak. So the rate of injuries is actually quite low, you know, and we do take good care of our performers, but you know, every once in a while, sure, something will happen. You didn't warm up properly, you did a bunch of flips and you know, something popped, that

can definitely happen. You didn't warm up properly. You did a bunch of flips and you have something pop. That can definitely happen. Yeah. I've certainly learned you have to warm up in my old age. I never used the warm up. I don't need that. But man, I've learned after a couple of pulling some muscles and just light injuries that you got to warm up those muscles. Otherwise, you're just rolling the dice into making it all work. So yeah, people can catch the podcast as well from you guys.

What's the future of what you guys are doing? Is there any sort of maybe expansions or any sort of different things that you're doing that you see maybe you guys are innovating here on the future scale? David Morgan We have one innovation that I haven't mentioned. I kind of want to keep it a surprise for people when they see the show, which is the animated backdrop. Actually, we have a patent for it and there's an interaction between the performers on stage and the backdrop. So the dancers will literally appear to go onto the screen, do a bunch of stuff and fly on the screen and even

transform it to something else and then come back down onto the stage. So that's really cool, but you have to kind of see it to understand what I'm talking about. We have a symphony orchestra. So this is kind of like, you know how in Transformers, you have the small ones that become like this huge, bigger robot? So that's kind of our, we have eight companies where we can call them troops that tour around the world.

At the same time, each of them has a dance troop and an orchestra. And at the end of tour, often in the fall, the orchestras from the eight groups will then combine to make a big symphony orchestra. And they'll perform at Carnegie Hall and other places around the world. That's really cool.

We have a video streaming platform called Shen Yun where you can find past performances, a lot of behind the scenes stuff, training videos about how to train like a classical Chinese dancer, concertos, just a bunch of so much good content there. And then I think everybody's biggest dream is to take the show back to China someday. That's what I think drives us a lot of the time when we get a little tired to think about,

we stick this out long enough, things are going to have to change. And one day we will, especially for the Chinese performers, be able to bring back this heritage back to China where it came from and show people there. So until then we're performing all over the world. Once we actually go to China, we probably won't have as much time to visit every city in the US like we do now. Ah, it would be great. You could tour China and get everybody re-in touch with their heritage and their culture from years ago. It is a kind of a sad thing that happens with the Chinese people, how they're repressed.

I've seen some of that social, I forget what they, monitoring that they do with cameras and they give you a credit score based on what kind of citizen you are. You can imagine that. I mean- Pete Slauson Yeah. In fact, whether you get a job, whether you can go to school, whether you can get married, all these things can be under their control. Exactly.

It's almost, I'm just going to do jokes here. Anyway, the final thoughts as we go out, tell people how they can onboard with you guys, how they can learn more about what you guys are doing and watch for you coming to a city near them. One final thought is thank you very much for this chance to talk about this. It's been really great talking to you and kind of diving into some of this. Yeah, thank you. So to find out just about where we're performing, go to Shenyun.com. That's S-H-E-N-Y-U-N.com. To learn more about the company and some of the stories that we perform on stage and the history behind them and who the artists are, go to

Shenyun.org. My podcast is Shen Yun Voices. And if you want to learn about the transnational oppression, the sabotage, I got all of it documented in a huge table that's on my website at lieshailemish.com, L-E-E-S-H-A-I-L-E-M-I-S-H.com. Pete Thank you very much for coming to the show. It's been very insightful. I've learned a lot. Now, I want to know more about original Chinese culture. I didn't even know that was a thing. See you in a show. There's a million things Chris Foss doesn't know, but this gives me something to tool

into because I love learning shit. I love seeing stuff and new stuff and that's the beauty of life. Chase the world around, chase the light around the world. Don't go into that good night gently. See what's here. There's so much beauty in this world and we don't see it all and we don't appreciate sometimes every day because we're sometimes so busy walking by it and doing the world and just sort of appreciation for this thing. I run huge dating groups and I've been surprised how many people aren't into the arts. I've been surprised how many people aren't into ballet and opera.

And I don't know if it's because I live in Utah and Vegas, but Vegas loves the arts, but a lot of that's tourism. I don't know how many participants of the locals do it, but I know there's appreciation evaluation because it's everywhere there. But yeah, could we get you guys a residency in Las Vegas? That might be really amazing. I don't know. That'd be great. I'd love to do that. Especially if we can be there during the winter and not in Quebec. Hey, if we could get you in the sphere and you could have that, that screen thing that

you got going on in the background. We do perform in Vegas. We perform in Utah as well. And if you're in cities there, yeah. I'll have to watch things. Yeah. The year after COVID, when we just started performing again, we actually performed in Salt Lake City in August. Pete Slauson Oh, wow. Jared Slauson And I'd never been to Salt Lake City when the weather was nice. It was so gorgeous.

Pete Slauson I've always been there in February. Pete Slauson You must have came on the right day. Jared Slauson That one afternoon was really nice. Pete Slauson One afternoon. Yeah. I mean, we're in that phase right now where it's 71 day and it's 40, the rest is snowing. And you're like, what the, what is going on? It's like, it's like living with an abusive relationship with a bipolar weather person or something. So, yeah, it's not, it's not too bad, but it's a beautiful state. But yeah, it'd be great if you guys could, that would be

amazing in the sphere. I got to go see everybody in the sphere. That thing's crazy down there in Vegas. But yeah, if you guys could get a residency there. But something that, something that can really just celebrate culture and I love learning about things. The Japanese are interesting to learn from. And the Chinese, you know, I'm a big fan of film movies, the original movie producer and, you know, learning about what goes on over there. Cause I know about American history I deal with that when I was growing up I don't know for that American history there, but you know so many other things that influence the world You know, it's important not to live in a bubble. Anyway, thank you very much for coming on the show

I really appreciate it and i'm gonna look into it and get to know more And all that good stuff. So thank you very much. Mm you guys have eight companies, 500 world-class artists performing a great breathtaking all new production every year. So you guys create a whole new production every year. It's quite undertaking. It's not only the fastest growing performing arts company in American history. We also, and now this is our 19th season produced, 20-something pieces every year. Nobody's doing this. This is the choreographers and the composers. I think they're probably dazing, they're kicking themselves. Do we really

introduce every year a new one? But at the end of the rehearsal season, it's ready, it's out the door, and it's beautiful, and it's different. And it's a great undertaking and it's very fulfilling for everybody. It's healthy I think for the performers too, to not be doing the same thing over and over and over again for 20 years. That's we have a fresh new production every year to do. Thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. And give us your.coms as we go out so people have those.

All right. So Shenyun.com, Shenyun.org, Lichaiishailemish.com and Shen Yun Voices. Thanks, Thomas, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Forchess, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Forchess, Chris Voss, YouTube.com, Forchess, Chris Voss, one of those crazy places. Be good to each other and we'll see you guys next time. Thank you.