Cynthia Ling Lee is an American dancer, choreographer, and scholar. She performs in contemporary, postmodern, and classical Indian dance techniques. Her research focuses on queer and postcolonial experiences in Asian diasporic performance.

Biography

Lee was raised in Texas by immigrant parents from

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. She is of

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...

and

Indigenous Taiwanese Taiwanese indigenous peoples (formerly Taiwanese aborigines), also known as Formosan people, Austronesian Taiwanese, Yuanzhumin or Gaoshan people, are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, with the nationally recognized subgroups numbering about 5 ...

descent. As a child she trained in classical piano and did not begin studying dance until she was in high school, when she began taking

Chinese folk dance Dance in China is a highly varied art form, consisting of many modern and traditional dance genres. The dances cover a wide range, from folk dances to performances in opera and ballet, and may be used in public celebrations, rituals and ceremonies ...

and modern dance. She attended

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

, where she majored in English and minored in dance. After graduating from Swarthmore, she was awarded the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study religious dance in Thailand, India, and Brazil. While studying in India, she was introduced to Kathak, a form of Indian classical dance. She began studying Kathak and researched the connection between choreography and interculturalism. Lee returned to the United States and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. She joined UCLA's Center for Intercultural Performance's World Festival of Sacred Music as a staff member. After graduate school, Lee joined the Post Natyam Collective, a transnational coalition of dance artists that engage in critical approaches to South Asian dance. She joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as an assistant professor of dance in the College of Visual and Performing Arts' School of Dance. She later joined the faculty at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

as an assistant professor of theatre arts, teaching contemporary dance and Kathak. Her choreographic work and research focuses on postcolonial, queer, and feminist-of-color interventions in Asian diasporic performance. She has performed at the Dance Theater Workshop in New York, East West Players in Los Angeles, the IGNITE! Festival of Contemporary Dance in New Delhi, and Chandra-Mandapa: Spaces in Chennai. Lee is an executive board member of the Network of Ensemble Theatres.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Cynthia Ling Living people 21st-century American dancers American contemporary dancers American women choreographers American choreographers American female dancers Kathak exponents LGBT people from Texas Queer dancers Queer women Swarthmore College alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, Santa Cruz faculty University of North Carolina at Greensboro faculty Year of birth missing (living people) American women academics 21st-century American women 21st-century American LGBT people