Today we’d like to introduce you to Kerry Lee.
Hi Kerry, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Chinese dance has been part of my life for as long as I remember, because my mother Hwee-Eng Lee started teaching Chinese dance in Atlanta just after I was born and went on to found the Atlanta Chinese Dance Company in 1991. My relationship with the art form hasn’t always been simple though. Growing up if you told me that I would go on to co-direct Atlanta Chinese Dance Company with my mother and make a career of performing, teaching, and choreographing Chinese dance, I don’t think I would have believed you!
I was born and raised in metro Atlanta, which has been historically framed as a black/white racial binary. As a Chinese American, I often felt out-of-place and pressured to assimilate. This extended to dance as well, where I viewed the dance world through the lens of a pre-professional ballet student which felt so removed from my other life as a young Atlanta Chinese Dance Company dancer. I loved it all, but I sometimes erroneously questioned whether Chinese dance was inferior to art forms like ballet and modern/contemporary which are much more widely understood and celebrated in the US.
Through the process of performing Chinese dance hundreds of times throughout the country for cheering audiences from all walks of life, I came to realize that the art form can be a powerful tool for transformation – my own personal transformation to be more confident in my own skin, as well as community transformation by sharing unique and rarely-told perspectives to connect on a universal human level. I also gained perspective when I worked at the intersection of arts and activism on staff at Alternate ROOTS, where I’m still a longtime member alongside hundreds of Southern artists and cultural organizers.
Just as Chinese dance has transformed me, I feel a sense of responsibility to ensure that this opportunity is available to others. I also hope my work can serve as a healing force in a society that is deeply divided.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I think most artists will tell you that it hasn’t been a smooth road, and I am no exception.
The dance world is so competitive. The reality is that most people who have passion and talent for dance don’t have the privilege of making a career out of it, so I feel very grateful. It’s easy to get caught up in looking around the room or scrolling social media, seeing that it’s full of amazing dancers, and questioning whether it’s realistic to try to defy the odds. Added to the fact that my parents didn’t want me to pursue a career in dance (as is common for most Chinese Americans I know), it felt most logical to go to Stanford University for engineering and get a lucrative job.
During orientation at Stanford, we were encouraged to follow our heart and choose a major not for its practicality but out of passion. If you pick a major you hate just because it’s lucrative, what if the job market changes and it’s no longer lucrative? Then you’d end up with nothing. But if you choose something you love, no matter what happens at least you’ve found joy in the process. Stanford didn’t have a dance major, but I minored in dance and spent almost all of my free time dancing. Thanks to the support of my parents, teachers, and friends, I took the leap a year after graduation and went on to perform nationally and internationally with H.T. Chen & Dancers, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Dance China NY, and gloATL before returning home to co-lead Atlanta Chinese Dance Company with my mother.
In terms of creating new choreography, one struggle is that there is no roadmap. I’m imagining something in my head that hasn’t been created before and working with others to bring it to life through movement. The process of gaining clarity about what I want to express before I create a single step in the studio often takes a long time, especially in the midst of competing responsibilities like grant-writing, logistics, and marketing. When I created “Ribbon Dance of Empowerment: Chinese Dance through the Eyes of an American,” it took many months of writing and rewriting (often through tears) to process my personal journey growing up Chinese American in the South and finding empowerment through the Chinese ribbon dance. Then there’s the physical process of experimenting with new movement to the music, use of space, lighting, etc. When something isn’t working, is it a choreography issue or an execution issue that can be resolved with more rehearsal? It’s a painstaking but very rewarding process, and I’m so grateful to everyone who goes along the ride with me!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
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.
I wear many hats, but perhaps the most unique aspect of my work is my choreography practice. 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 do you think about luck?
As much as I’d like to think that hard work alone can propel one to success, unfortunately I think luck does play a role. I can’t control my luck, but I can control how prepared I am when a lucky opportunity comes along.
For example, I feel honored to have had the opportunity to perform and share an excerpt of my choreography “Ribbon Dance of Empowerment” at the national Dance/USA conference. It was luck that the conference happened to be in Atlanta and that Atlanta artists had the opportunity to apply to be showcased. It was also hard work to take the time to submit the application when there was already a lot on my plate, not to mention the work of creating the choreography and the daily grind of a dancer before I could ever imagine an opportunity like this coming along. Luck played a role when many of the original cast members from 2019 were still available and willing to perform the piece in 2023. We’d also had the opportunity to perform the piece multiple times in between, which made it better. I can’t control my luck, but I can put in the work every day to make the most of what comes my way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kerryylee.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/achinesedancer/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF138E0290C752B9D
- Other: http://www.atlantachinesedance.org/
Image Credits
Stephanie Gough, Hwee-Eng Lee, Patrick O’Neill, Lander Stoddard, Xiaoheng Wang
