Elsie Shi: Joy and Meaning in Classical Chinese Dance

Text by June Fakkert

Few adults get to experience the joy of soaring heels above the head through the air. However, for dancer Elsie Shi, this is one of her greatest delights. On top of her packed training schedule, she will sometimes learn new flips—like the backflip—“just for challenging myself,” she said in an interview with Elite Lifestyle.

Elsie has been passionate about tumbling since she was 10 years old, and she used to dream of becoming a gymnast. However, her fate has a different arrangement for her in life.

Due to aging out of gymnast training back then, Shi decided to take lessons in classical Chinese dance, which also has a tumbling component. Little did she know then that the flips she saw in gymnastics competitions actually originate from this dance form.

After China opened to the rest of the world in the 1970s, the country’s gymnasts began entering international competitions. They often incorporated classical Chinese dance techniques and flips into their routines. Gymnasts and dancers from other countries started copying these movements, which soon became ubiquitous, although they have since been altered so that most people do not recognize their origin.

Shi is now a principal dancer with Shen Yun Performing Arts, the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company. “Dancing is a joyful part of my life,” she said. Her dance career gives her daily pleasure, as well as the deep satisfaction of knowing that she is contributing to something much bigger than herself.

Based in upstate New York, Shen Yun seeks to revive authentic, “divinely inspired” Chinese culture. For decades, the communist regime of Mainland China has been waging an ideological war against these traditional beliefs, trying to replace them with its culture of atheism.

Shen Yun was founded in 2006 by Chinese artists who wished to preserve their heritage. Seven touring companies now perform around the world every year, giving around 750 performances all together.

New performances are created every year, containing dances from China’s different dynasties and ethnic minorities, such as Mongolian, Miao (or Hmong), and Tibetan. Also included are narrative dances that depict traditional folk tales and stories from Chinese literature.

Fixing Mistakes, the Traditional Way

An undertaking of this magnitude is, of course, not without challenges—both for the performers and for the company.

Though Shen Yun is frequently praised for its flawless performances, Shi said that mistakes do occasionally happen. She recalled one dance that involved doing a high sidekick while balancing a porcelain vase on her head. During one performance, she almost knocked the vase off with her toe.

She still remembers this close call and said that whenever mistakes happen, there is always an outer reason but often an inner one too. So, when there is a mishap or near miss on stage, the company’s members reflect on what they might have been thinking that contributed to it.

“[T]here was a bit of showing off like, ‘See how high my leg can go,’” she said in the follow-up interview email, recalling the near miss.

This kind of reflection is a very traditional Chinese characteristic. Influenced by Buddhism and Taoism, ancient Chinese people held that one’s destiny and attitude shaped the course of that person’s life. Thus, mishaps and difficult situations offered opportunities to improve one’s character and, later, one’s lot in life (or at least one’s lot in the next life).

In the same vein, material wealth was also attributed to destiny and merit from past lives. Thus, traditionally, the ancients placed more emphasis on striving to be the best and noblest person one could. They believed that although people are destined to live in different walks of life, everyone can advance themselves by aligning their thoughts and actions with higher principles. In contrast, Marxist theory says that class is an unfair social construct, and the Chinese Communist Party carried out a series of genocidal campaigns and the Cultural Revolution to fix this supposed injustice and incorrect thinking.

Fine Line Between Good and Evil

Every year, Shen Yun performs a narrative dance from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West.

One year, Shi played a queen who has been possessed by an evil scorpion. The scorpion wants to eat the protagonist, a monk who is on a quest to bring precious Buddhist scrolls from India to China. Shi found this role “quite challenging” and said that key to performing this character—and portraying the evil through movement—was having a running script in her head, on top of the right feeling.

On stage, the possessed queen with her clawing hands and sinister, slinking movements appeared quite vile. However, Shi’s mental script was pretty mundane, consisting of phrases like “Welcome to my home,” with a feeling of pride. This is a reminder that certain emotions and desires are fertile ground for the seeds of hatred and destruction.

The existence of good and evil in human nature is not just theoretical for Shen Yun performers. In 1999, China’s Communist Party (CCP) launched a persecution against adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual practice. The persecution continues to this day, and CCP propaganda has convinced many ordinary citizens that it is right to physically and mentally torture practitioners in order to change their spiritual beliefs.

Shen Yun also includes in each year’s program a piece that portrays this persecution, and Shi said that based on feedback in recent years, many audience members around the world find these stories to be the most powerful and moving part of Shen Yun performances.

Meaning

Shi said that her Chinese name has two characters: 逸 (yi) which translates as “to fly or flow with ease,” and 謙 (qian) which means “modest.” Her English name derives from an ancient Hebrew name that means roughly “my oath to God” and from an old English surname that means “elf” and “victory.”

All of these meanings pretty well sum her up: a heavenly lady who loves to fly but knows she must be modest and humble to fulfill her divine promise. She said that it’s the meaning in what she does that keeps her going despite tough challenges and other setbacks. “Meaningfulness makes the hardships worthwhile.”