We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shannon Yu. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shannon below.

Shannon, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

First of all, I want to acknowledge that this is a verbal interview being kindly transcribed and edited by my friend Lau Malaver, Ph.D. Alright, I came up with the name of my company SHA Creative Outlet around fall 2021. The word SHA started with Sarah, my partner, calling me “Sha” (short for Shannon) and other people in my orbit also starting to pick up that name. Sha sounds similar to my one of the characters in my mandarin name 香(pronounced Hsiang) , so in some ways Sha feels like a representation of a part of me. It also sounds a lot like the word 殺 (pronounced sha) which means “kill” in mandarin! And, well, an important reason for how I came up with the name of my company is due to not wanting to use my direct name as my dance company. For me, that year was a time that gave me space to think critically about my passion, so, I decided to truly pursue creating and it became clear to me that I needed an umbrella terms and practice that would be more inclusive of ideas and people, and not just offering my name as the focus of my company. SHA Creative Outlet is partly an invitation to collaboration where my ideas are there and real, and so are other people’s ideas.
Now, why “Creative Outlet” as opposed to dance company? Well, I imagine that as it grows over time, Sha Creative Outlet can become an umbrella and perhaps hub for other kinds of medium and artistic work such as film, animation, visual art, performance, etc.; a sort of cross-pollination that thrives in the process of creating art. For me, the relationship between my invitation towards collaboration and my company Sha Creative Outlet is not confined to one single or one-dimensional discipline; in fact, “creative outlet” is actively offering a media source, an outlet source that can showcase many different mediums, and from where collaborations can arise towards more multi-dimensional practices.

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 a dancer-choreographer, queer-creator. I have been dancing since I was 4 years old, and have practiced various styles over time. At the moment, I am focusing on breaking, contemporary dance, and Wing Tsun. In regards to my identities and practices, as a dancer, I feel I am good at improvisation, taking what is happening in a moment in time within my surroundings, and then transferring such experience back into the environment in ways that may be surprising. Hence the improvisational approach. As a choreographer, I have come to understand choreography in three parts: 1) Creating Movement from and with all the practices I engage in such as breaking, contemporary dance, and Wing Tsun, and massaging or working with elements that I pull from those practices simultaneously; 2) Sequencing: creating rhythm with and from those elements to lead to performers and audiences to experience what is happening in real time; and 3) Constructing the Space: this includes physical and mental space alike. Physical space could be imagined as stage designing in a morphing sort of way (props, lighting, etc.), not separate from mental construction of space. This is about the performers and audiences feeling in the space as the piece is happening. Every moment when and how feelings show up for audiences and performers alike, affects how the space is constructed and vice versa. As far as the other two identities of myself (Queer-Creator): Queer is how I live my life and how I see the world. I sense the urge to want to be original and unique, as in the only version of myself. The care to find my own ways of expressing myself and choosing to do just that. Queer is something that I picked up based on how others were perceiving and responding to what I was doing. Along the way, I picked up queues that informed that the things I am doing are queer, that I am queer, and I am doing things queerly. And as a Creator, this is a term I feel expresses how I am not only creating dance, which choreography tends to be described through, but that also describes how “Creator” could, and frequently does, offer different aspects of art. For example, when I was working on my last piece that incorporated music, I was also generating music collaboratively and editing the music, and from that practice of editing and manipulating sound, I noticed I too was creating the music facilitated through this collaboration. This demonstrates to me how I have been creating all along such as when I am using a camera and noticing the relationship to what my camera lens offers, or when I draw in a state of flow with no clear beginning nor end (very improvisational too!), or when I create clothes. So Creator to me encompasses all of the creative things I do. Queer-Creator as something I am and something I do.

As far as how I got into what I am doing, I would name again that I have been dancing since I have memory! It was not until my sophomore year of college where I was studying civil engineering, that I did some truly life-changing performances where I felt the love and purpose of my lige: “this is what I am here to do!” I felt that I wanted to be good at civil engineering and good dance at the same time; yet, I learned I had to focus on one of them and it was in that moment in college that I decided “i am going to pursue dance.”
For me, the types of services that I provide and what makes me stand out too, is my dedication, intention, and commitment. I know and feel that I put on a good performance as a dancer and/or choreographer. This to me comes from knowing that I have acknowledged I want to do things that feel and are different. I like to go towards what I think is new, those fresh ideas around me, as opposed to what others are doing such as solely following trends. I want what I put out to be my stuff, recognizing the influences I have gathered over time and are within me, which go through my own embodied processes to make a fresh spin into something different/new. I feel this allows me to have processing time. Let me give you an example, I am not doing “copying and pasting;” instead, within my processing time I notice how other elements start to appear and come into my process such that if there is a trend I am seeing, I processes it, add on to it, play with it with my trainings, skills, my unconscious, memories, imagination, instincts, and more, so then I can come up with something uniquely mine. In other words, method is almost improvisational every time!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

At the core of my mission, I can feel the love and the gift that are coming from the universe through me that tell me to create and do things. I am the vessel who is receiving those gifts and transforming them to active practice and I have to do it.; to be translating the love and energy I am receiving, and the inspirations and ideas that come to me. And with that, I want to inspire people. This all brings me peace and joy; to see my path in front of me showing me bits and pieces and telling me to keep going, inspiring me to keep on going. I receive these energies not always through words; yet, I do translate them through my creative process to inspire people to see things in new ways, to feel they have potential to do what has felt impossible and to feel things could be possible. When I am interacting with others in non-peforming settings (where I am not performing), I find space for interactions that allow me to see others’ gifts which could potentially lead to collaborations to happen. Yet, it is ultimately about the creative journey not just creating performances.This mission brings me joy: to see people after my performances andd see sparks in their eyes.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

All About Love by bell hooks. I read a couple of pages every morning, to reflect on the content of “love.” Due to people’s tendencies to fall within cis-heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism, I can reflect on how I too interact with others within these systems. From here, I begin to think I can choose love and I can come from love. And even when I am doing business and focusing on my career, I feel I can still come from love rather than greed and other things mass media teaches us. Having genuine relationships with people and following what your heart wants to do, as opposed to what you think you must do, is refreshing. Choosing love feels to me that it is about choosing trust. From within a scarcity mindset, we get trapped into believing we need to be in solely transactional relationships. But, I have experience how while it takes time to trust abundance, we can still choose love and follow our gifts. For me the ongoing impact of my philosophy as a dancer-choreographer queer-creator is allowing myself to be as big as I have to be in all sorts of spaces (rehearsal, performance), and trusting that the “true me” will bring out the “true you”/others where we can choose love and trust. This takes a lot of practice to trust and love since we live in a society that teaches us to be small. I need to step into my full true self in all the roles I do, knowing that what I am offering is valid, and it will make sense, inspire, and for other dancers to trust my offering and theirs alike. So I will be my full self. It takes practice. It can be easier to shrink; but to become aware is practice. That is why, it is all about love.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @hsiangru.yu @shacreativeoutlet
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWeow7u0b61Zw6qk-iB0WM220RUbUNrPG

Image Credits
@imageworkshannon Tatiana Hochrein Julie Hill Rachel Keane Collaborations