This is Victor Li’s fifth time entering the NTD TV International Classical Chinese Dance Competition. For most aspiring classical Chinese dancers, this competition is a rite of passage, one chaired by many of the same artists who helped put this 5,000-year-old art form on the map worldwide. “I don’t think I’ll enter again,” added Li, a dancer with the renowned Shen Yun Performing Arts. After all, he is already a member of the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company, and the competition is for Li mostly a chance to face himself. Purpose Li was born in Thailand and grew up in Canada, with little exposure to classical Chinese dance, or traditional Chinese culture at all. But his older brother had pursued classical Chinese dance as a career, and made it into New York-based Shen Yun. Li would visit his brother in America from time to time, and through those visits become …