Today we’d like to introduce you to Jiao LI.
Hi Jiao, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
As an immigrant artist, this is my fifth year in New York. During these five years, I have been a resident dance teaching artist in different public schools. What impressed me most was that when I was in the public schools in Brooklyn, most of the students were recent immigrants from China. They could not speak English and had very limited learning resources.
When I taught them traditional Chinese dance, I felt their passion for Chinese culture. They became more determined and confident about their own identity. Especially in the United States, a country of immigrants, everyone can find their own community and culture.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
From my perspective, I think the children of new immigrants should get more learning resources and attention. There is a large Chinese population growth in Brooklyn of NYC. First of all, their parents have low income and low education, they cannot provide learning resources, they can only send their kids to the after school. Some students’ parents even work outside of New York, so parents can only send their children to host families. secondly, as parents they also have a very hard time and struggling with life, they could not able to understand English. Also working with 7 day a week. They can not spend time with their kids. Thirdly, as a teacher, I always encourage them to be confident, and I always share my difficult moment of learning English when I arrived in the United States. They have the right to shine on the stage and have a bright future.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a school director of the New York Chinese Cultural Center. Currently, I am a sub teacher in New York Department of Education. My intent that throughout my career as an educator and choreographer, that I can develop new bridges between the Chinese folk and ethnic dance of my childhood home with the modern and contemporary dance of my new home. Chinese dance focuses exclusively on external presentation to communicate the meaning: the dancer’s physical technique and positioning, the use of rote props, and repetitive storylines. Modern and contemporary dance, conversely, seek to convey meaning and emotion to the audience without relying on technical or prop tropes. These two formally recognized styles exist on opposite sides of the dance communication spectrum.In my choreography, I explore ways to merge and influence these contrasting dance styles. Conveying meaning and emotion to an audience is important, but as the world increasingly diversifies, so do audiences, demanding that while ethnic and historical features ought to be remembered and represented, that communication of the underlying feelings and emotions must carry through even to audiences unfamiliar with the physical tropes. My current exploration focuses on how simplification and repetition, key to modern and contemporary dance, achieve these myriad goals.
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