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AUDIENCE REVIEW: Emerging Choreographer Series 2025: Jiemin Yang

Company:
Mare Nostrum Elements

Performance Date:
4/25/25

Freeform Review:

Jiemin Yang is an arresting performer and an even more evocative choreographer whose work pulses with cultural specificity and emotional resonance. With a deep sense of care and a paradoxical blend of groundedness and spiritual lift, his choreography invites not just observation, but communion. This was palpable in his recent presentation at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, part of the Emerging Choreographer Series (ECS), administered by Mare Nostrum Elements, which featured “In the Noodle” and “Portraits of the Moon,” that have touched the minds, bodies and spirits of many in NYC through inclusive workshops in Chinatown communities to intimate art gatherings. That slow build only made their official staging more powerful; these weren’t just performances, they were the completions of a cycle.

“In the Noodle,” inspired by the Longevity Noodles of Jiemin’s Fuzhounese heritage, is both playful and evocative. Projection designer Qixin Zhang (启新), also Fuzhounese, creates a delicate imagery of noodles suspended in memory, in myth, that work in tandem with the dancers’ movements. Together, with Emily Hsieh’s costume design, featuring sinewy white noodle-like spandex strands whirling and flowing like Longevity Noodles in harmony with the dancers’ bodies, a tactile narrative unfolds on stage, visually echoing a cultural inheritance stretched and remade.

“Portraits of the Moon” brought me to tears, the kind that comes from being deeply moved by great art. Jiemin started off this incredible piece with a personal speech about what the moon means to him, and as we witness the choreography unfold, his remarks drive further the emotional arc of the scene unfolding: one of diasporic longing, of aching, remembering, and celebrating. The moon animation is designed by Jiemin himself, and the stunning yellow and orange projection, which is slowly absorbed by the shadows to represent the lunar phases, hangs above the dancers like a celestial promise and witness. The dancer’s yellow and white costumes, created by Emily, invoked joy and ancestral echoes to their movements and complemented perfectly the colors of the moon which, like them, are vibrant and glowy against the darkness around them. The ensemble moved with discipline and tenderness, embodying a story of separation, return, and an eternal, unbreakable bond. It is a beautiful, transcendent love letter to the moon.

The breathtaking collaboration of artists like Qixin and Emily, along with the voiceover work by Shan Chuang and Timmy Ong, a community of deep stories shared in other languages, ethereal and stirring music by composers James Acampora (who created the opening duet) and Yen-Nien Hsu (whose work includes the Chinese poem segment), the dedication and skill of his dancers, and so many more further highlights Jiemin’s extraordinary reach as an artist and visionary and his ability to inspire. Jiemin does not choreograph from ego. His work is generous, deeply felt, and rigorously crafted. Audiences don’t just watch; they are involved, carried, and seen. This is choreography as an invitation, as connective tissue. In a landscape where cultural nuance is often diluted for mass appeal, Jiemin’s specificity is the universal. I urge anyone who encounters his name to go. Jiemin Yang is a choreographer whose work will outlast its moment. He dances not just for himself, but for memory, for family, and for something far larger.

Presented by Mare Nostrum Elements as part of the 2025 Emerging Choreographer Series at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center.
Choreography by Jiemin Yang. Projection design by Qixin Zhang. Moon animation by Jiemin Yang. Costumes by Emily Hsieh. Music by James Acampora and Yen-Nien Hsu. Voiceover by Shan Chuang and Timmy Ong. Photography by Garrett Parker.

Author:
Kammy Wong

Photo Credit:
Garrett Parker