Eventually, Lian focused all her time and energy on developing fully in classical Chinese dance, perfecting the moves and pursuing refinement of the art in her career, all while retaining the joy of it.
When people see Shen Yun dancers on stage, sometimes all in perfect unison while still in motion, the precision of that hand gesture, that placement of the foot, and the position of the head is impressive. But what sticks with audiences is what they often describe as an indescribable, but uplifting, feeling.“It’s a very vast, very grand thing. It’s very deep. Once you know a move, it’s not just about how you do it, not just how your hand goes this way and your foot goes that way, and you position your head there. It’s not just like that. It’s a much more holistic thing.”
Magical
On stage, together with the dancers she so admired, “it’s very magical,” Lian said. Not just the movements but also the energy of the group has to be in sync to achieve that effect.“You can actually feel the energy of everyone. You feel like everyone is in sync with everybody else. You can actually feel their breathing and heartbeat, and then your footsteps just connect together. Maybe that’s why we have such impressive energy when we dance, as the audiences say,” she said.
Back when Lian was only a member of the audience, her only reaction was to marvel at how beautiful the dances were. Now that she knows these artists personally—as individuals, professionals, and friends—she sees their performances in a different light.
Michelle Lian won the Junior Division Gold Award in the 2016 NTD International Classical Chinese Dance Competition. (Larry Dye)
Her fellow dancers in the company have been great artists and mentors not just in dance but also in life, Lian added, because of the holistic view they have of their craft.
For instance, Lian explained, what she tries to bring to the audience is something “clean and bright and positive.”
A Shen Yun Dancer: A Vessel for Art
Classical Chinese dance is famously expressive, and Shen Yun’s dances always include several storytelling pieces. So as a dancer, Lian had to learn to act.“I did ‘The Butterfly Lovers,’ and it was quite interesting because in that piece, I have to be a girl and pretend to be a guy at the same time—in one piece,” she said. It was quite the challenge for her first dramatic role. “If I had to do it again, I'll probably do it a little differently this time,” she said with a laugh.
“[With acting], you have to adjust your emotions ... in order to be realistic you need to layer emotions, and you need to adjust the proportions to make something better,” Lian said. Dancers of this caliber work on perfecting what the average dancer wouldn’t even realize is within their control—like the tone of an interaction with another dancer, or the whole atmosphere of the stage.
To do this, Lian seeks a pure state of mind.
Michelle Lian won the Junior Division Gold Award in the 2016 NTD International Classical Chinese Dance Competition. (Larry Dye)
