We were lucky to catch up with Kerry Lee recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kerry, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful project I’ve ever worked on is “Ribbon Dance of Empowerment: Chinese Dance through the Eyes of an American,” a production I co-directed for the Atlanta Chinese Dance Company in 2019 inspired by my personal journey growing up Chinese American in the American South.

Like most other Chinese dance groups around the world, Atlanta Chinese Dance Company has historically presented choreography by and about China. As a Chinese American, I’ve found these dances to be simultaneously near to my heart culturally yet far removed from my life as an American. Through my work on staff at Alternate ROOTS (a regional arts service organization based in the South), I had the opportunity to meet artists and cultural organizers advocating for social change via community rooted art. This led me to the radical idea of using Chinese dance to share rarely told American stories.

“Ribbon Dance of Empowerment: Chinese Dance through the Eyes of an American” intertwined Chinese dance with never-told-before stories by and about 10 Chinese American dancers and their families, culminating in a self-choreographed mini dance drama about my own story finding acceptance and pride in my bicultural identity by performing the Chinese ribbon dance for American audiences across the country. In Chinese dance, ribbons are traditionally used for celebratory dances or to represent celestial beings; I repurposed them as weapons alongside swords and staffs to fight off invisible daggers of internalized racism.

The most meaningful part of this project was hearing from people from all walks of life who were moved to tears by the work and in turn shared their own stories with me. There were many Asian Americans with similar experiences who thanked me for giving voice to their stories. There were people of different backgrounds who could deeply relate, and some who could not – including immigrant and adoptive parents of American bred Chinese children who were surprised by the stories and thanked me for helping them to understand what their children might be going through. Most exciting of all, the mini dance drama was discussed in China’s prestigious Beijing Dance Academy Forum and in an essay in Dance Chronicle (peer reviewed academic journal) by Dr. Emily Wilcox as an example of groundbreaking choreography reflecting Asian American experiences through dance. It was also an honor to perform an excerpt at the national Dance/USA conference and set the work on university and high school dance programs.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am the Co-Artistic Director of the Atlanta Chinese Dance Company. My mother Hwee-Eng Lee founded the troupe in 1991, and Chinese dance has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up training with Atlanta Chinese Dance Company as well as pre-professional dance programs such as Atlanta Ballet, Boston Ballet Summer Dance Program, and Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City.

After graduating from Stanford University with an engineering degree and working for a top-ranked economic consulting firm, I followed my heart into the professional dance world in New York City. I had the opportunity to tour nationally and internationally as a Chinese dancer and modern/contemporary dancer with Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, H.T. Chen & Dancers, Dance China NY, and gloATL before returning home to co-lead Atlanta Chinese Dance Company with my mother.

Atlanta Chinese Dance Company is a multigenerational troupe of dancers who share Chinese and Chinese American history and culture through the art of Chinese dance with audiences of diverse backgrounds. We present a full-evening production every 18 months which features Chinese dance repertory from China as well as my original choreography reflecting rarely told Chinese American history and stories from the perspective of the American South. We also frequently present performances, lecture-demonstrations, workshops, and residencies for schools/universities, museums, libraries, senior centers, military bases, arts festivals, international days, corporate events, Asian American community celebrations and more throughout metro Atlanta and beyond. Highlights include performing in the opening ceremonies of the Centennial Olympic Games and sharing the stage with Atlanta Ballet dancers in a culturally authentic “Chinese variation” in Act 2 of the Nutcracker for more than 10 years.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goal to use the art of Chinese dance to invite people of all backgrounds to learn and celebrate the uniqueness of the Chinese and Chinese American experience as well as the universality of our shared humanity. I think there is a misconception that Chinese dance is only relevant to the Chinese community and represents a faraway time and place. Through my experience performing and teaching over the years, I’ve been privileged to witness how Chinese dance can bring joy to people of any background, age, or ability. It can also be a powerful tool to bring people together here and now.

Through my choreography, I draw on Chinese dance traditions and cultural practices while contextualizing them with present-day social issues from the perspective of the American South. I collaborate with artists of different genres such as a hip-hop crew, multicultural chorus, contemporary ballet dancer, documentary filmmaker, and visual artist to create work reflecting our shared experiences. I amplify rarely told Chinese American history and stories to encourage us to learn from the past and create a better future together. Often this is knowledge that I and my cast did not previously have the opportunity to learn and process, so it feels deeply meaningful to embark on this creative journey together and share it with a broader audience.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Even though my mother founded Atlanta Chinese Dance Company and my parents had danced together in their native Singapore, my parents did not want me to pursue a career in dance. I had a stereotypical Chinese American upbringing – I was good at math, played piano competitively, and was destined to follow my father’s footsteps to a school like MIT. When I ended up at Stanford University, I did what was expected of me and majored in engineering. After graduation, I chose the safe path of working a prestigious high-paying corporate job.

I’ve always had a passion for dance, which was inherited and nurtured by my parents since birth. When I was 12, I remember poring over the bios of Atlanta Ballet company dancers and watching their every move. I was fascinated by their creative process in the studio and camaraderie in the wings. Later in high school I learned of Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company and H.T. Chen & Dancers and fell in love with how they melded eastern and western dance forms, which really spoke to me as a hyphenated American.

But by the time I got to Stanford, my brain reasoned that dance would always remain a hobby. My heart had other plans. I spent almost all my free time dancing, both as a dance minor and as an officer for 2 student dance groups (I co-founded Stanford Chinese Dance, which I’m proud to say is still going strong almost 2 decades later!). Fortunately, I had many excellent teachers as well as classmates and alumni to look up to who had successfully pursued creative careers despite the odds. They gave me the tools and courage to follow my heart.

Knowing my dream companies were based in New York, I strategically found a job related to my major there which enabled me to pay the bills while auditioning. The hours were long and unpredictable, which made it challenging to keep up my training. Some nights I’d leave work, buy a hot dog from a tourist food stand, and eat it while speed-walking to make it to class on time. Other nights I’d be in the office past midnight. Weekends were not guaranteed either, which made it hard to commit to professional projects.

I have to thank H.T. Chen and Dian Dong for not only offering me my first real job as a young dancer but also as the administrator of their Manhattan Chinatown school. The combined roles amounted to a full-time position, which gave me a sense of financial stability that is hard to come by in the dance world. With that I took the leap, and the rest is history!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kerryylee.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/achinesedancer
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF138E0290C752B9D

Image Credits

Stephanie Gough, Hwee-Eng Lee, Patrick O’Neill, Lander Stoddard, Xiaoheng Wang