Atlanta Chinese Dance Company shared a rarely told story about Chinese Americans growing up in the South through an original production Ribbon Dance of Empowerment: Chinese Dance through the Eyes of an American on October 19-20, 2019 at the Infinite Energy Theater. Intertwining Chinese dance, history, and culture with personal storytelling by and about some Read More
Memoirs of a Chinese Dancer
彩绸舞的力量：以美国人的视角看民族舞蹈
记得小学四年级的时候，老师讲到美国内战。她让我们回家问自己的父母他们的祖辈参与了美国内战的哪一方。当时我就知道我不用问这个问题。我的答案，或更确切地说，我无法回答这个问题，会和班上其他同学的完全不一样。作为一个黄皮肤的美籍华裔，既不是白人也不是黑人，我不知道我到底属于美国的哪个族群，或许哪个都不是。
Ribbon Dance of Empowerment: Growing Up Chinese American in the South
A condensed version of this story served as the basis for an original mini dance drama performed by the Atlanta Chinese Dance Company on October 19-20, 2019 at the Infinite Energy Theater. Learn more here. A Little Red Dragon The ribbon dance is a traditional Chinese dance of celebration. Anyone can try their hand – toddlers at Read More
A Global South: Building Community through the Art of Chinese Dance
This 2017 article is part of Alternate ROOTS’ Creating Place project – a collection of reflections, challenges, and offerings to the national dialogue around creative placemaking. View the full multimedia collection here. In 1986, a group of immigrants approached my mother Hwee-Eng Y. Lee about starting a Chinese dance class for their teenage daughters in Read More
怀着满腔愤恨，选择以爱面对—以舞蹈来纪念南京大屠杀
英文作者 李凯妮 中文翻译 厉俐 1937年12月13日中华民国在南京保卫战中失利，首都南京沦陷。侵华日军于南京及附近地区进行了长达6周的血腥暴行，遇难人数超过30万。在南京大屠杀中，大量平民及战俘，尤其是手无寸铁的妇女儿童和老人被日军以及其残忍的手段杀害。许多人都知道张纯如写的《被遗忘的大屠杀》一书。此书曾据纽约时代畅销书单榜首。然而，最近当我向我周围的同事朋友和舞蹈班中美国华裔高中生问及此事时，发现这个中国历史上如此惨绝人寰的大屠杀居然在美国不为大多数人所知。
Choosing Love in the Face of Hate: Remembering the Nanjing Massacre through Dance
On December 13, 1937, Japanese troops captured the Chinese city of Nanjing and subsequently took 300,000 lives over a six-week period. Not only were soldiers executed on mass, but large scores of the city’s most vulnerable civilians — women, children, the elderly — were raped and mutilated to death in the most unspeakable terms. Many Read More
Battling Asian Inferiority: Decompartmentalizing Chinese Dance
Back in 2006 my mother Hwee-Eng Y. Lee created a piece for the Atlanta Chinese Dance Company called “Rebellion,” in which a Chinese American teen refuses Chinese dance lessons from her mother in favor of hip hop. It was part of her original full-evening Chinese dance production Back to the Roots, depicting the poignant relationship between an Read More
Courage
In the hours before I launched my “Memoirs of a Chinese Dancer” blog, I had a mini anxiety attack. Stepping away from my laptop to clear my head, chopsticks in hand over a plate of dinner, I asked myself (yet again) whether I was crazy enough to lay bare the emotional wounds of my journey into the professional Read More
Why Atlanta Chinese Dance Company’s Finale Won’t Have Fans or Ribbons
When we get to the finale of the Atlanta Chinese Dance Company‘s original production China in Transition: Animal Folklore to City Life, you might be wondering if we forgot our costumes – why after a stunning display of the dazzling, colorful costumes from China that our audiences often gush about, we’d choose to end the production in Read More
How I Danced Professionally
I stand in the front of the room and tell people what to do. I’m rarely impressed. And then I star in performances I co-direct. I must seem so full of myself — like I just show up and do my thing, without putting in the grit and mundanity that I supervise. It’s my own Read More