It’s already at the end the end of the year 2023. What a year of CHANGE! Since graduation, my life has hugely shifted. I felt like I almost lived two lives in a year, the first half as a graduate student and the other half as a dance faculty.

After I graduated from Ohio State University in May, I moved to Mankato, Minnesota, where I started as an assistant professor in Dance at the Department of Performing Arts. Learning new theater and dance department ecosystem, adjusting the new school schedule as a faculty, adopting the cold Minnesota weather… All happened in less than five months. It was a huge learning curve to be an instructor of college-level movement courses with various students, not only dance major students but also Theater students and dance minor students with different movement backgrounds. I aim to offer a class where students can feel safe to be curious, explore, and deeply listen to their bodies and internal desire to dance. Ultimately, I want my students to look forward to taking classes. I wanted to write it down here to remind myself of the future -Where I started and what dance educator I want to strive to become.

Photos from the Fall Dance Concert 2023

I also would like to mention some of the choreographic projects I participated in this year. I was honored to be chosen as a dance artist to perform outside of the school system. Yujie Chen and I performed “Motion of Seeing” at the Detroit Dance City Festival in September. This piece we created was the second iteration of “Body Negative” and it expanded the idea of mobility in seeing the performance. I also deepened my choreography to think about how BIPOC artists deal with cultural representation. We received the National Exchange Award. Even though I am still in search of my artistic voice, such rewarding to share and recognize dance works that My collaborator and I put the effort into.

Photos from the performance, “Motion of Seeing” at the Detroit Dance City Festival

Another chance that I could explore my artistry was through dance filmmaking. I was fortunate to be part of the project, Dance for Diversity. Dance for Diversity was founded by Elizabeth Roskph and envisioned to amplify visibility and create a platform for BIPOC Artists to center their unique voices and their stories through their art while fostering a place of belonging and reclamation of their true identities. I had the privilege to collaborate with the videographer, Rachel Malhorn. I had an idea of visualizing in-betweenness that I experienced as a first-generation immigrant. I wanted to showcase the acknowledging upbringing and how we adopted, changed, and merged our living experiences in different cultures to live in the U.S. For 4 months, we had great communication back and forth to discuss creative direction. We filmed all the materials in Milwaukee WI in 2 days and assembled the film. The level of understanding and trust made us create a dance film, 藍 (Ai).

Photos from Dance for Diversity, at the Film Series Premiere

I want to conclude this post with appreciation and hope. The job and many choreographic projects that I participated in were extensions of what have learned and inserted in working with during my graduate time. This year gave me confidence and autonomy in what I want to do. I hope to expand and grow more in 2024.