Chun Zhang
Moving Knowledge
Ballet (since 1998)
Chinese dance performance and pedagogy (1998-2004)
Chinese Folklore (since 1998)
Chi Gong and Tai Chi (since 1998)
Contemporary dance (since 2003)
Choreography (since 2003, master)
Chinese Opera (since 2004)
Artistic Research and Analysis (2008-2011, Master)
Jooss Leeder Technology (since 2015)
Pilates mat (since 2015)
Laban - Bartenieff movement study (since 2017)
Somatic work and dance movement dramaturgy (ongoing research)
born 1988 Shanghai, China, is a solo dancer, choreographer, artistic director, Kurt Jooss Prize 2019 holder and co-founder of YIBU DANCE. She toured in France, Sudan and Africa with Shanghai Culture Bureau as a dancer, when she was 15 years old; toured in South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Kasachstan with the youth dancing troupe of Beijing Dance Academy. She started her professional choreographic practice when she was working as a full time dance teacher in Macau Conservatory, 2011. In 2015, she pursued her dream study in choreography in Folkwang University of Arts and started her independent dance making ever since then. Till today, she has settled in west Germany, produced 5 evening length works under the name of YIBU DANCE, engaged in artistic research, dance films and cross cultural exchange through teaching.
Her artistic interests lie in the movement creation and invention. Her great talent is to create such diversity and richness in the reduction that it develops a very strong depth and emotion that leads to immersive expressions and experiences. ʻVisual, original, unique and specialʼ are usually the feedback of her works. She fused her somatic training from recent years to her choreography, opened up brand new themes, established a somatic way of working.
ARTISTIC STATMENT
Making art and invention through movements
The moment that changed my life is that I do not ask what I want to express. I ask what the body and movement want to express. I do not make up movements for any theme and stories anymore. I let movement speaks for itself. Endless joy and creativity started to flow ever since then. I am freed from what dance is. Freed from that `I' in between. The rest is just love, joy, beauty, wisdom of life through moving.