Teaching What Shen Yun Taught Me

Hey there! My name is Alison Chen, and I am a former dancer (and blogger!) with Shen Yun Performing Arts. Now that I’ve pivoted my career to focus on dance education, I wanted to share how my past experiences with Shen Yun still guide me today.

In recent years, I’ve been stumbling along while growing into my new roles as a dance instructor and arts administrator. But sometimes, when I feel lost or don’t know what to do, I look back to what I learned in Shen Yun for a bit of direction.

Of course, I can’t copy everything Shen Yun does—we’re in two different scenarios.

Shen Yun is a professional performing arts company. Meanwhile, here in Middletown, NY, I’ve been working at a branch campus of Fei Tian College. Here, instead of specializing only in performing arts like what my alma mater in Cuddebackville does, our new campus offers more degree programs in the arts and sciences, preparing our graduates for career opportunities in various fields. We also have a dance department here, but our goal is to prep our students for all sorts of careers related to dance and the arts. And because of the two different student bodies, there aren’t many things that I can copy-paste directly from Shen Yun.

When I first started teaching, I was learning to puzzle together so many different moving parts, such as leading a department, navigating through higher education, working with other offices… and it felt worlds apart from my past experiences as a performer.

Fast forward a few years, under the patient guidance of my Department Chair and mentor, Ms. Yung Yung Tsuai, I started to get the hang of my new administrative role. That’s when I began engaging our students in local dance outreach initiatives.

Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing at first. I just wanted to give our students opportunities to perform and connect with people from all walks of life. We would go to public schools, senior centers, outdoor festivals—you name it. Slowly, our efforts began to snowball as we started collaborating with other local dance schools, music and dance companies, and other organizations.

Looking back now, I see that after so many years, all along I have been inspired by what I learned during my time at Shen Yun. These are three of the things that I have really held on to:

1)    As a team leader, it’s my job to set my team up for success.

When our college dance department engages in local arts outreach, every performance is completely different—from our dance programming and casting, to the location, venue size, and types of audiences. Each time I have to deal with lots of scheduling and logistics. Sometimes, as a reminder to stay organized, I think back to Shen Yun’s company and tour managers and how they handled everything for such a large and diverse group, day in and day out.

And as the “leader of the pack,” I know everyone needs to work together, as it’s impossible for one person to do everything alone. I remember from when I was performing with Shen Yun, we each had different tasks and roles—from taking care of costumes and props to helping with production setup or packing up after the show. So now, with our college student dance ensemble, I try to delegate tasks in a similar fashion, allowing our students to get more of a hands-on experience.

2)   “Work hard, play hard(er).”

Touring with Shen Yun was often stressful, with back-to-back shows and tight travel schedules—but we always got some days off. One of our company managers used to tell us, as long as we strive to perform our very best, then on our off days, we should just completely relax and have fun.

So now, that’s one of my favorite ways to motivate my own students—I tell them, as long as you put in the work, it’s good to unwind before you have to grind again.

(And yes, sometimes, I do play harder than they do, haha!)

3)   Treat each other like family.

Starting with being students at Fei Tian, and then as performers with Shen Yun, we were always taught to treat each like family—and from what I see, it’s still like that now. As we studied, trained, and lived together, we got to know and understand each other on a deeper level, and it definitely helped us to perform better as a whole.

Even now, my closest friends are still the ones who were by my side all those years at Fei Tian Academy and Fei Tian College. Some are still performing with Shen Yun, while others, like myself, have transitioned to other jobs. But we’ve built a deeper sort of connection, where even though we don’t see each other often now, but we still have a special type of unspoken trust between one other.

I really leaned into the friendships that I have built over these years, and without my “Fei Tian family,” I probably wouldn’t have pulled through all the different challenges as we trained to become professional dancers. With lots of late night chats and heart-to-heart talks, I learned how lucky I was to be with people who wished the best for me—even if we had to pry through some uncomfortable conversations sometimes, but at least for the most part, everyone was upfront and earnest.

My own college students are living and studying under different circumstances now, but likewise, I also see them as a part of my new “Fei Tian family!”

I hope that they can also open their hearts and treat one another with love and kindness. They only get to be in college for a few years, but after they step out into the “real world,” they won’t have as much time and capacity to build up friendships that are so genuine and evergreen.

This sort of friendship is something that has really stuck with me from my time with Shen Yun, but I’m learning now too—you don’t have to be in Shen Yun to live by this!

Until next time—cheers!