YEN-CHING
The Poetry of Transformation
There is a quiet luminosity to Yen-Ching. She moves through the world with a gentleness that feels both grounding and expansive. As a dancer, she is sensitive to the subtleties of people and places. Attuned to the whispers of nature, just as the rhythms of human connection, she remains in dialogue with her surroundings. Yen-Ching is a London-based movement artist, choreographer and teacher. Her independent research and creative output explore the compelling dialogue between dance, stillness, photography and film, while forging a distinctive interdisciplinary approach. She has collaborated with esteemed artists and companies including: Hofesh Shechter Company and Bern Ballet (under Stijn Celis), Akram Khan Company, Charles Linehan, and Didy Veldman, Theo Adams Company, Stefan Jovanovic, BalletLorent, Clod Ensemble, AE, Waldorf Project, Alice Anderson, Lee Mingwei, Punchdrunk, FOS(Thomas Poulsen) and Bullyache among others.
Born in Taiwan, her path into dance began almost by accident. “I could never sit still,” she recalls with laughter. As a child she balanced her time between piano lessons, athletics, and school sports, until dance appeared as an escape from rigid academics. By her teenage years, she persuaded her mother to let her transfer to a specialist dance school — a decision that set her on an entirely new course. Asked which form she enjoyed most in those years, Yen-Ching explained: “When I was in Taiwan, I used to love ballet. All of my friends now, when they see me, say, ‘No, are you sure you did that?’ And I tell them yes — I used to wear pointed shoes. Back then I thought I was going to become a ballerina. That was my dream when I was a kid.” From there, she studied at the Taipei National University of the Arts, before moving to the UK to join the London Contemporary Dance School, completing a postgraduate master degree.
It was through his high school that Darion was given the opportunity to work on a project for the Jazzart Dance Theatre, a leading name in the SA dance industry. The students spent Saturdays at Artscape – Cape Town’s most famous theatre – while working with choreographer Sbonakaliso Ndaba. It was an eye-opening time – Darion recalls, “I think all of us in that room, being young, from underprivileged communities, having this opportunity to work at Artscape on a Saturday…And it was high-level home girls (top choreographers) working us to the bone. We weren’t perfect, [but] we were really hungry for what that moment was for us.” He felt that his schoolteachers took his talent more seriously after that experience. After high school, Darion wanted to join Jazzart, but there were no auditions until the following year. Instead, he began a Diploma in Dance Education at UCT, following a successful audition and approval for financial aid. It was during this time that he decided to officially come out to his mother, saying “Home girl, I’m gay.” Her surprise took him by surprise, “I was like, ‘How did you not see it? Like, girl you need to open your eyes, I mean you can see from space, this is a unicorn’…I didn't have a difficult coming-out experience, it was just my mom having to reconfigure the image of me that she had in her head.” He reflects on his mother’s acceptance and subsequent protectiveness, “We were in Pick ‘n Pay, and the cashiers were ridiculing me…She said, ‘Don’t you f*ck with my child!’ She went off, ‘Don't you ever treat my child like that, I will f*cking moer you with this jam!’…I don’t know if we paid for that jam.”
However, coming out is still a concept he struggles with, “I think the coming out experience is really just about other people. It has nothing to do with us because we know. Like, to confirm it for you, it's just so cliche, we shouldn't have to. Why must I make this grand speech for you? It's ridiculous.”
Darion admits he struggled to take his university studies seriously, taking four years, instead of three, to complete his degree and only just scraping through. Coming close to failure was a wakeup call, to “get it together and stop smoking weed”. He was serious about wanting a career in dance, but dismissed the idea of a stable position in teaching, as it didn’t align with his “radical” worldview and activist lens. The next few years saw him undergo further training, this time at Jazzart, and he was eventually promoted into the company. After five years of working and performing for the company at Artscape Theatre, his contract ended, and he went freelance. By then, he’d built a name for himself in the industry, and his year ahead was booked solid. There was just one problem: that year was 2020. “I’m a working girl – I booked that entire 2020, and I couldn't do it, and that was a tough time because I thought it was the end.” Noticing art and performance going online during the pandemic, and having always recorded himself dancing, making dance film was a natural reset. “I made my first film, Reclamation Home, in what you call ‘The Courts’ in Manenberg…It was beautiful, because there was a lot of washing hanging, and I asked all the aunties ‘please don't remove your laundry until I am done,’ they didn't know what they were agreeing too, and I was dancing my tits off…I edited it on my Android and I entered it into a festival, My Body, My Space…The festival was on WhatsApp, and you could watch the films on your phone – that's when I started working for me.” More films followed, and his work was screened in Berlin, “How the f*ck did I get that, you know? It was the POOL Movement Art Film Festival, I called the film Perspective – it was a triptych of me in a tunnel upside down.”
Darion reflects on the challenges artists from disadvantaged backgrounds face just to be seen, or taken seriously, “I think what a lot of people don't realise, is that there are self-worth issues people who come from our communities experience when we go to spaces of privilege where a lot of white people occupy space.” He wanted to start giving back, extending the ladder behind him to up-and-coming artists. In January 2023, he launched the AIM (Art in Manenberg) Society. AIM provides a platform for culture in the community, producing art spaces and hosting screenings. However, not everyone is on board with this sort of visibility – when we spoke, he’d had a screening interrupted the previous night, “I got dope films to be screened in Manenberg. Someone decided, ‘We've had enough of this change the world sh*t’, and they switched off everything midway…They were just like, ‘’We don't want this’, but I’m like, ‘There’re 50 kids sitting there – it's not about you!’” He’s determined to proceed with screenings, even if he has to hire private security. He understands the complexity and pressures of community activism, “There's so much responsibility that I have now, that I'm taking on for myself, but it has to be done, there has to be more, and if I'm fighting a dichotomy, if I'm fighting a mindset that was cultivated by Apartheid and colonialism, I'm going to fight.” For aspiring dancers, Darion recommends to “Be unmissable…I was placing myself in the rooms… I never sat with my friends, I sat with the directors. I did all of the stuff to not be seen as regular, because I know where I come from. I'll have lunch and chill with my brahs and have cigarettes with them, but [in the room] I'm just going to sit with the directors. They were like, ‘What is this child doing? Why is this child always talking to us?’ I’m always asking them questions. Even if I have no questions, I’m sitting, I’m watching, I’m observing.” As for right now, Darion is still choreographing his next moves, “I want to continue establishing AIM…Then I still want to create I as Darion, want to make actual feature length dance films and documentaries, I want to produce a lot of things. I want to have installations in and out of Manenberg… I’d like to do international collaborations and performances at festivals – I essentially want to be a producer and curator who travels the world and curates, in all parts of the world, amazing artistic experiences.” For anyone out there still doubting his abilities, Darion borrows a pet phrase from Nicki Minaj, “You can’t get rid of me, bitch!”
Photography - David Sessions
Model - Yen-Ching
Words - Amel