This is New – Bomb Threats
Over the last week, we’ve faced an escalation in attempts to sabotage our shows as theaters where we’re performing in are receiving bomb threats.
The first time I heard about this was when one of our companies was performing at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, California. On March 22, a day before the shows there, the theater received an email:
“We randomly placed a lot of bombs in the theater. If you don’t want us to detonate the bombs, please refuse Shen Yun Performing Arts to perform here immediately!”
Police and sniff dogs carefully inspected the theater and determined it was an empty threat (news coverage). And with both precautions and a lot of courage from the theater and the performers, the weekend shows took place without incident.
My group, meanwhile, was performing in Vancouver, Canada when the Queen Elizabeth Theatre received an identical email the following day, March 23, also sent from a Chinese name. I got a copy of the email. As it’s still being investigated, I’ll remove the sender and recipient name and just share the text itself below:
By March 26, theaters in Long Beach and San Luis Obispo also received bomb threat emails. All turned out to just be scare tactics.
There were also some emails threatening mass shootings, perhaps inspired by the concert massacre in Russia. In Taiwan, where one of our other groups is performing and sightseeing on off days, multiple threats were received as well.
On March 27, our Shen Yun headquarters in Deerpark, New York received an email that read:
“In the near future, you should take care of your actresses, who may very possibly disappear one by one and may be naked when found. Forensic conclusion is that they are killed after being raped!”
This comes on the heels of the recent revival of the old tire-slashing tactic (see below) and after two unknown Chinese nationals tried sneaking in backstage after our performance in Portland, OR. These two, a man and a woman, I actually intercepted as I was still standing around near the stage-right entrance minutes after the show was over. Normally people aren’t allowed backstage without a pass, and I didn’t recognize them, so I started chatting with them and asking them questions. At first, I thought they might be a performer’s parents or friends. They seemed friendly, and pretended to know people in the theater—but none of the staff there knew them. They kept asking technical questions about our production, like our lighting and projection setup. Eventually we asked them nicely to leave as we were actually locking up. They left followed by security, and I went back to change. Turns out they circled through the lobby and then tried to enter stage left, where our production manager intercepted them a second time.
Hmm… spies, slashing tires, and threatening to kill thousands of people in multiple cities and rape and murder our dancers. Seems like a real escalation of CCP tactics. Seems news worthy. I wonder when, say, the New York Times will cover this. Oh wait, that’s right, the Times much prefers writing stuff the CCP enjoys.