Magnolia Yang Sao Yia – Comps Choreographer Spring 2019

Magnolia Yang Sao Yia is a Hmong dance artist and PhD student in Critical Dance Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Southeast Asian Studies. She holds a BFA in Dance and Minor in Asian American Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Through the support of the Deanʼs Distinguished Fellowship Award and the Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts, she will be researching dance and embodied practices of the Hmong diaspora in the United States. Yang Sao Yia is a House Dance practitioner and has also trained in YorchhaTM , the Contemporary Indian dance technique of Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT). She has danced with ADT from 2013-2017 and will be rejoining them for the premier of Sutrajaal: Revelations of Gossamer in the fall of 2019. Informed by the work and vibrations of ADT, Yang Sao Yia creates at the intersection of social justice, dance and healing.