We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Yolanda-Tianyi Shao a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Yolanda-Tianyi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’ve been training as a dancer for the over sixteen years in China, I’ve always been drawn to movements from human bodies and found the meanings behind that through different media. Not only in dance context, after the over decade of traditional dance training, I started to question the limitation of human body and the way of dancers thinks. I’m interested in why human move in their certain way driven what kind of impulses.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a Chinese interdisciplinary choreographer and movement director. I have an MFA in Choreography from California Institute of the Arts, and have collaborated with artists across the board, including animators, composers, theater directors, actors, filmmakers, sound designers and photographers. My short experimental dance film futile/gestures was selected into the San Francisco Dance Film 2023, Oregon Short Film Festival, Best Experimental Film Award Finalists and many other film festivals including Berlin Indie festival, Fisura International Festival of Experimental Film &Video, the Santa Clarita International Film Festival. I have been invited to present my works at Irrational Exhibits 12 at Track 16 Gallery in DTLA, AAPI Heritage celebration at bG Gallery in Santa Monica, Keystone Art space in Los Angeles, UCLA Chinese Culture Night at Royce Hall, Yiwei Gallery in Venice. As a Chinese artist living in the United States, I focus on the impact from some of the historical and political issue which have been buried from long time ago. Recently I’m working on a physical theater FIVE MINUTES, as have been exploring the relationship between humans and their history in a sociopolitical context. With my background of over decade in traditional dance training, I also started to question the limitation of human body and the way of dancers thinks. I create physical, theatrical performances where a literal dialogue occurs though movement and explore situation where words and spoken language is inadequate.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

After I came to the United States for pursing the further education in Choreography in California Institute of the Arts, I started to realize and focus on the impact from some of the historical and political issue which have been buried from long time ago. For my family, my friends and people who might have similar experience. Also with my background of over decade in traditional dance training, I started to question the limitation of human body and the way of dancers thinks. I create physical, theatrical performances where a literal dialogue occurs though movement and explore situation where words and spoken language is inadequate.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

As an artist, I always think, meet new people, exchange the different information and perspectives about things constantly happening in this world. Always got inspired by people surrounded with no judgments. Creating arts process for me is like building a community that people feel they are loved and supported.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: ylannnnnda
• Other: My shorts futile/gestures’s website: https://filmfreeway.com/futileslashgestures

Image Credits
image 1-2: Photo shoot with Dimitri Chamblas and Josh Rose 2021 image 3: collaboration movement project Break the Persona with the Chinese photographer Wanyue An image 4: futile/gestures live performance at the California Institute of the Arts, featured dancer and the musician: Noah am Ende, Kanoa Ichiyanagi image 5: futile/gestures drawing night at the California Institute of the Arts, featured dancer and co-director: Ryan Nebreja, Aaron Holmes image 6: futile/gestures short film, co-directed with Aaron Holmes image 7: futile/gestures short film awards image 8-9: Movement performance at Yiwei Gallery, collaborated with the Chinese painter Jesse Jing, actor Olivia Xing and the composer Drew Sensue-Weinstein