During my Peace Corps service in Guiyang, China I developed a program for the Foreign Language School at The Guizhou University of Finance and Economics. "American Dance Corner" consisted of two lectures about American dance history with a focus on cultural diversity. The lectures were followed by choreography activities where the students expressed themselves in English and developed dance moves. The movement created was then assembled into a dance throughout series of four technique and choreography workshops in the rehearsal room at The School of Arts.

To kickoff the lecture series we watched a Diesel Jeans commercial called the "The A-Z of Dance."

For the first lecture, I started by showing a picture of myself during a Bharatanatyam performance I took part in when I lived in Bangalore, India as a teenager. I asked the students: “Is this American?” and of course they unanimously responded: “No!”  I then showed a clip of Ted Shawn’s "Cosmic Dance of Shiva" that I had dowloaded from YouTube using my VPN and gave them some context. 

I defined key terms such as: orientalist, appropriation, cultural diversity, and heritage. I related each of these terms to the turn of the century currents and the beginnings of modern dance in America.  I then presented 沈伟 (Shen Wei) as an example of how modern dance methods and vocabulary are being interpreted and used by this Chinese-American artist today.

Finally, I concluded with a clip from the popular show "So You Think You Can Dance," which many people watch in China. In the clip, Alex Wong talks about his training at the Miami City Ballet and we see him prepare to perform a hip-hop show.

In the second lecture, I talked about African-American culture and dance. Together, we defined the following terms: vernacular, colonial, slavery, restriction. I then presented the concept of whites trying to mitigate the subversive potential of enslaved blacks pursuing creative expression during the colonial period and gave examples of legal restrictions. To provide a visual reference I showed a video from the National Archives of a ring shout. 

I then profiled the husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers of the early 20th century, Vernon and Irene Castle and explained how they "cleaned up" vernacular dances from the African diaspora resulting in popular dances such as the Turkey Trot.

I showed an excerpt of "Groovie Movie," which clearly attempts to trace back the origins of the boogie, the jitter bug or the swing and other popular dances from the 20’s and 30’s to European roots while largely overlooking influences that African-Americans have had on U.S. popular culture.

In the first choreography workshop I started by asking the students to think of a place they have never been or a culture they’ve never interacted with and share three ideas in English. The students then came up with dance moves based on their descriptions.

Students came up with beautiful movement about Thailand, Cambodia, and South Korea. One student chose America and explained that many people in the U.S. were serving time in jail and did a dance using his wrists as if he was in handcuffs. He then described that Americans like to get drunk and turned his head in every direction. Finally, he said that in America people were proud and he walked around chest puffed out looking at his peers as if they were less than nothing.

His performance opened the floodgates and students asked me questions about life in the United States embedded with assumptions about topics ranging from gun violence to racial discrimination as well as gender equality and sexuality among others. We were able to unpack some of these loaded questions but inevitably would run out of time. 

We worked together over the course of six weeks to assemble a performance that kicked off the award ceremony for the yearly English speech competition.

This program was an experiment in sharing the complexities and nuances of the diverse American experiences that we embody as a country. Overall, using dance effectively generated a safe-space for arts based experimentation and to openly discuss pre-conceived notions about life and identity in the United States.