Yi An

Yi An is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in Performance Studies at the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Hawai ‘i at Mānoa. Her dissertation project, “21st Century Global Performance Studies: International Artistic Exchange, Dancing Process, and Chinese Dance Pedagogy at the Beijing Dance Academy,” addresses the entrenched cultural values and classroom teaching in Chinese conservatory dance training. Yi was a 2021 and 2022 recipient of the John Young Art Scholarship, and her scholarly work appears in Asian Theatre Journal, NDEO blog, and 2021Shanghai Dance Research Anthology. As an international artist-scholar and educator from Dalian, China, Yi began her full-time professional dance training at 12 at Beijing Opera Art College, where she had trained intensively in both Chinese Classical Dance and Folk Dance. In 2015, Yi graduated from China’s premier dance conservatory, Beijing Dance Academy, with a BFA degree in Han and Tang Chinese Classical Dance. Later, Yi received an MFA in Choreography in 2019 from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Her choreographic works have been staged internationally and domestically across the mainland US, Hawaii, and Beijing, China.