In this exclusive interview with NTD, Jesse Browde, a principal dancer of Shen Yun Performing Arts, talks about life as a dancer for the world’s elite group for classical Chinese dance. Was it really Navy SEAL-level training like he thought it would be? And how did classical Chinese dance even become his career of choice? NTD also spoke with his father, who recalled the difficult decision to send his then-teenage son away to school and how he knew it was the right thing.
Watch Jesse and Levi Browde open up about their experience at Shen Yun Performing Arts in this exclusive interview.
Evelyn: Welcome. I know it must be a lot of anxiety and nerves to send your sons away for school, but it seems like it has worked out pretty well for you two because you both are now involved with Shen Yun Performing Arts. So to start though, I want to back up to the very beginning with Jesse. You grew up in the United States, you were identifying with American culture, you played baseball—what was the kind of path you took that you suddenly got interested in traditional Chinese dance?
Jesse Browde: My parents found a school located in Middletown, New York, that also taught the same kind of dance form as what Shen Yun was doing on stage. And at the time, I had a couple of friends in the dance program. And so it was more because of peer pressure that I chose to enroll in a dance program because I just wanted to be with my friends. The reason I kept going with dance was the brotherhood. I noticed that the dancers seemed a bit closer with each other than the other programs of that school, like the music department or the academic department.
Evelyn: You said it was your dad who went on to look for a private school. Why were you trying to get him out of the public school system in the first place?
Levi Browde: First of all, we were in what was supposedly a Blue Ribbon School District in New Jersey. It was a very good school district. But there is, I think, a pervasive problem in education that I was seeing. It was primarily two things I would point out to: one is the combination of social media and smartphones had really decimated the social fabric of growing up in high school and things of that nature—much, much worse than I think even parents were recognising at that point. I was looking at the studies coming out about what was happening to teenagers because of that, and seeing what it was doing to the environment. I was very worried about that.
The second thing I was very worried about, though, was the sort of coddling mentality that had seemed to creep into public schools, or really education and parenting more broadly in our country over the last 10 years. And I thought that combination was very dangerous for young people. If we’re going to raise young people to be confident and poised, I thought that was not where I wanted to be. We actually went driving all throughout the northeastern United States looking for private schools that might have a better option.
Evelyn: Why dance?
Levi Browde: It was interesting. For me, dance—he was interested because of his friends, like he said. For me, I didn’t really care about dance, I knew nothing about dance. But one thing I really liked is that, particularly in this school, the teachers were phenomenal. And that’s something that my father actually told me this advice when I went off to college, he said, “Find the great teachers and take their classes.” And I think what he meant by that, and I think it’s really true, is if you have great teachers who have done great things in life, and they’re bestowing that on young people, that is a very precious thing, because they’re teaching more than just the subject. They’re teaching a methodology, a way of thinking, a way to achieve excellence. And I saw the dance teachers at this school that Jesse was going to were that. They were really high-caliber people. And I thought, “Okay, I don’t really care if he dances or if he learns, or he gets good. But he’s going learn from these teachers who are excellent. And that’s going to be a great experience.” So I was really excited about it.
Evelyn: I want to come back to you, Jesse, for a moment. You said before that basically you had some negative feedback even from the dance instructors, but then you started to put your mind really into becoming a dancer, and you became really set on that. Where did this change come from?
Jesse Browde: There was a pretty clear turning point for me, I guess. It was the spring of 2018. The school took us to see the Shen Yun performance that year. It was that year that I saw not only the passion of the dancers on stage, but the impact they had on the whole audience. Coming out of that show, I made up my mind that I wanted to do this in the future and nobody could stop me from that. And it was mainly because I wanted to inspire people the way I was inspired that night when I watched Shen Yun.
Evelyn: How was it for you then? You sent off your son. How was that transition like for you?
Levi Browde: When he was at Northern Academy in Middletown, we were all still together. I mean, it was just a regular day school, a private school. But when he made the decision to try out for Fei Tian Academy and then eventually move on to the college, that was the big change for us because that was a boarding school situation. And that would mean losing my son.
But it was interesting. I had an interesting experience because I saw him working so hard to make it into the Fei Tian that we were so immersed in that task together that it was like almost half a year where it was, you know, he was doing stretching, all these rigorous stretching exercises, and we were sort of helping him, trying to support him. I remember the day that he got accepted and we brought him up to campus, and I was leaving the campus and I just—a ton of bricks in me, it felt like someone had died. And literally, I was driving home and I’m thinking—I couldn’t understand intellectually because I was so focused on this great thing, that he just made it into this place. And I just realized … I wasn’t ready for it emotionally and it took a long time actually to get over that. But every single time I got depressed or I was concerned about it, I realized where he was and how focused he was on this goal and that was the best thing for him. So dad eventually got over it.
Evelyn: So for context, we’re talking about Fei Tian College. Being accepted into Fei Tian College meant that your chances to eventually maybe dance on the stage for Shen Yun got much larger.
Levi Browde: Yes, essentially Fei Tian College, you can think of it as the training college for Shen Yun. They actually share the same campus in upstate New York. So the Shen Yun headquarters and Fei Tian College and Fei Tian Academy are on a single 400-acre campus. Beautiful campus in upstate New York.
Evelyn: Got it. When you got accepted … you touched on it a little bit that you didn’t quite know what you were getting yourself into. But what kind of expectations did you even have at that point? How was it in reality?
Jesse Browde: Fei Tian Academy, the dance level was a lot higher than that of Middletown. So I was expecting the training to instantly elevate to Navy SEAL-level kind of rigorous training. And then I was a bit scared for that because I was already having trouble keeping up with the stretching routines we were doing in Middletown. Obviously, it wasn’t Navy SEAL standards. It was still pretty tough, but what I wasn’t really expecting was through this training, I developed a bond with the classmates that came up to Fei Tian with me. I could almost call them brothers right now to this day, because we live together, we train together. On break days, we would horse around and play around together, and they kind of just became a family away from home.
Evelyn: That’s wonderful. Can you tell me a little bit more about what a day for you is like? Because you’re doing dance training to be a professional dancer, and then you have all the schoolwork on top—what does this look like for you in a day?
Jesse Browde: It leads to pretty much jam-packed days, almost every single day. In the morning is three hours of dance training, be it rehearsal or taking bar and stuff like that. There are a lot of dancers that also wake up earlier to do some extra training before the rehearsals begin in the morning. We call this “zao gong.” And then after lunch, in the afternoon, that’s when we do our academic studies, where we learn everything from normal subjects you would see in school—like mathematics, science, history—we also learn subjects that are the kind we need on stage, like Chinese, Chinese culture, Chinese civilization, stuff like that. And then at night is just more training, more rehearsing.
Evelyn: Hearing all this, did you know how this would be like for Jesse, and were you ever worried that this would have maybe a negative effect on him, like in terms of pressure? Or maybe he would have to grow up too fast?
Levi Browde: No, I never had that worry. I mean, honestly, again, because he was sort of like this kind of big baseball player when he first started training. And so my only concern was, could he stay? From either end. Would he like it? I had the concern that he just might not like it and one day he’d call me and say, “You know what, Dad, this is not for me.” And I wouldn’t be disappointed because he’d lose out on dance. I’d be disappointed because I knew it was a great environment that would help encourage him and help him grow. So that was the only concern I had and that call never came. It was fine for me.
Evelyn: When was it that you took a sigh of relief and felt like, “Okay, he’s fine there. This was the right decision.” Did you have that yet?
Levi Browde: Yes, I think there’s two moments that popped in my mind. One is, during the whole COVID period, they had a very strict bubble system and I didn’t get to see much. And I didn’t really see much before the COVID period. So it was kind of, because of all that, it was like a two-and-a-half year period. I think it wasn’t until the dance competition in 2022 or 2021. So I hadn’t seen Jesse perform really on stage. And that was the first time. And again, my son is the baseball player. That’s what I was used to. And then when I went to that competition and saw him competing, that was an “aha” moment. I mean, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A complete transformation in terms of his physique and his ability to dance. And admittedly, I cried like a baby. And that was definitely an “aha” moment.
I think the second moment was, and these are more subtle, but during their off days—once a week, they’re off, you know, come home, or we’ll go out to eat—there was this change where … I don’t know if he knows this, but we would be sharing on Chinese culture and things like that. And he’s actually giving me pointers—since I was learning Chinese at one point in time—and he was sort of giving me pointers on how you focus on it and what not to worry about. And it was a level of bonding that I’d never had before. It’s usually just a father-son kind of thing, but this is more like a peer. This is more like someone who had gained a tremendous amount of wisdom and experience where he was, and he’s coming back and sharing it with me. And he left the room where he was helping me with my Chinese, and I sat back and went, “Wow, things have really changed up there.” And I think moments like that really tell me this was absolutely the right decision. Very happy.
Evelyn: Sometimes if you’re trying to grasp a culture, because culture is something so intangible, a lot of it is just being left unsaid, it’s just there. Tell me more about how you really figured that out, grasping the essence of a culture and knowing what the essence is.
Jesse Browde: Trying to first portray a character that lived 3,000 years ago, and then make the audience believe that they’re actually in a scene that happened 3,000 years ago, I feel like ultimately, it comes down to the values that you want to portray. Like, for example, last year I portrayed a general, Zhao Yun. He’s very famous for his bravery, his loyalty, and his humility. And I feel like aside from reading the history of it, aside from knowing the history, aside from watching TV shows and reading books on this character, I tried to almost change my behavior or try to incorporate these values into my daily life a little bit more. I tried to be more humble, I tried to actually respect my superiors a little bit more. That’s kind of hard to put into words. But I guess what helps me portray these values on stage is to actually live these values in real life.
Evelyn: You put a lot of work into all this. You studied, day in day out, hours for dance, and then of course, historically. How did it feel when you actually made it onto the big stage?
Jesse Browde: I remember the first time the curtain opened to see my first live audience, I kind of panicked because all that preparation for like a split second went into some remote corner of my brain. I was like, “Wow, what’s going on?” But I guess the more I perform, the more I was able to take what’s in my heart and share it with the audience through nonverbal movement. And I guess that’s the beauty of dance is that it transcends the barriers of language. And you can use dance to inspire people, to enlighten people, and educate people.
Evelyn: By being part of the show, what is it that you would like to give the audience after a night out watching Shen Yun, what is it that you hope they will take away?
Jesse Browde: Honestly, it’s what I took away when I saw Shen Yun that spring in 2018, was just inspire them to be better people. And I feel like this is the ultimate purpose of art—is to, again, to inspire people to be better.
Evelyn: What would you say is the biggest change in him, seeing him growing up now? Ever since you sent him to the school?
Levi Browde: Well, he’s a lot taller now. I don’t know if there’s one big thing, there’s a lot of little—he has this t-shirt he sometimes wears that says “no bad days.” And I love that. It encapsulates a spirit that Jesse always kind of had. I mean, he always had this sort of gutsiness to him that I never had at his age when he was a young kid, but it really flourished when he got to Fei Tian and started with Shen Yun. And this whole spirit of, if you’re doing great in the day, and everything’s going well, be productive. If everything’s going horribly, learn from it—add some fortitude to your willpower, power through it. The idea that he embraces those principles and lives them. I mean, it’s these kinds of things. That’s one example. There’s many of them. But it’s those kinds of things that I think really not only make me proud, but I learn from it as well.
Evelyn: So up until now, what do you think about it? What makes you proud?
Levi Browde: As a parent, I—actually, my whole family, I come from a very educated family. Education has always been a very big deal in my family. And that’s not just in the classroom. It’s sort of like, how do you raise children, not to live the life you want, but to give them all the tools to live the life that they want, with a reasonably strong moral compass and confidence and poise? That’s a difficult puzzle to piece together, especially in the world today. And honestly, I spent a lot of sleepless nights and worries about how to do that properly as the boys were growing older and older and older. And I think when we found Fei Tian and I saw the mission of Fei Tian, that they would shape young artists to be not only world-class artists, but I would say world-class people, people who learn the value of putting others before themselves, learn the value of aspiring to be more compassionate and things of this nature. I mean, that was really an “aha” moment for me, a major relief, the search was over. And I think I’m most proud to see that he’s been able to have this opportunity to go through that, the college, to be part of Shen Yun, to be part of this, because that’s what I always wished, is he would find something like that.
Evelyn: Now, you have become a board member of Fei Tian College, and you said that Jesse had something to do with it. So tell me more how that came to me.
Levi Browde: For me, it was really simple. He had gone up and started with the academy and the college, and I saw what a wonderful institution it was. And so I became friends with the chairman of the board. And when they had an opening, I said, “Hey, I would love to get involved in this. This is what I’ve been searching for my whole life as a parent. Can I help?” And I was elected to the Board of Trustees, and now I help with the college and I help grow it, and so I sort of followed him. I saw what happened to him. And I said, “I want to be part of this.”
Evelyn: What kind of role would you say that Shen Yun has in your life now?
Jesse Browde: It gave me a purpose. Before, I didn’t really know where I was going to go in life. But I guess what Shen Yun did for me was it gave me a purpose in life, not just superficially, like career-wise, it also gave me a moral standard that I have to meet every single day and be the best person, best artist that I can be.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Find out more about Shen Yun at ShenYun.com
