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Performances & Exhibitions
Education

Upcoming

Nigaogemao (Installation Art)

XV Florence Biennale, Florence, Italy--2025

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Off to On (Choreography)

Diffraction Dance Festival--2025

The Tank NYC, NY

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Off to On (Choreography)

Dance City Festival--2025

Dixon Place Theatre, New York City, NY 

Ruth Page Center For The Arts, Chicago, IL 

Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI 

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Insert Coin to Play (Film Screening)

The 32nd Dance Films of International Youth Unit--2025

Beijing International Film Festival, Beijing, China

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Insert Coin to Play (Film)

New Youth International Dance Film Festival--2025

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MATCH Residency

Los Angeles Dance Festival--2025

Brockus Project Studios

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2025 Choreographer’s Institute Residency

2025 cohort of the Choreographer’s Institute

McKoy Dance Project || MDP, New York City, NY

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Deluge, Undone (Choreography)

Spring Dance Festival--2025

Galvin Playhouse

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Past

ENTROPY (Concert), Galvin Playhouse, Phoenix, AZ -- 15th-17th November 2024

Nigaogemao (Exhibition), Galvin Playhouse, Phoenix, AZ -- 15th-17th November 2024

Tamer (Ensemble), Margaret Gisolo Theatre, Tempe, AZ -- 2024

Desire Path (Duet), Margaret Gisolo Theatre, Tempe, AZ -- 2024

I SEE (Solo), National Sawdust, New York City, NY -- 2024

Off to On (Solo), Deca Tiny Dance, Japanese Friendship Garden, Phoenix, AZ -- 2024

Insert Coin to Play (Film), Margaret Gisolo Theatre, Tempe, AZ -- 2024

I Don’t Even Know What I’m Looking for (Documentary), Galvin Playhouse, Phoenix, AZ --2024

What’s Left (Film), SWIFF 2023 -- 2023

Inches/ Centimeters (Film), Galvin Playhouse, Tempe, AZ -- 2023

Influx: The Bipolar (Film), Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ -- 2023

Who Are You? (Documentary), Margaret Gisolo Theatre, Tempe, AZ -- 2023

Who Gave Me the Mold? (Performance Art), Nelson Fine Art Center, Tempe, AZ -- 2023

Huajianmeng (Group), Chandler Center for the Arts, Chandler, AZ -- 2024

What’s Left (Duet), Galvin Playhouse Theatre, Phoenix, AZ -- 2023

Inches/ Centimeters (Duet), Galvin Playhouse Theatre, Phoenix -- 2023

Who Gave Me the Mold? (Performance Art), Nelson Fine Art Center, Phoenix -- 2023

My Name Is… (Performance Art), Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ --2023

The Weight of the Balloon (Solo), Shoeze Art Center, Beijing, China --2022

No Solution (Solo), Shenyang Conservatory of Music Theatre, China --2022

Paradox (Solo), Shenyang Conservatory of Music Theatre, China --2022

A Monument (Group), Shenyang Conservatory of Music Theatre, China --2022

Tai Chi (Group), Shenyang Conservatory of Music Theatre, China --2022

Sound of the Wind (Group), Shenyang Conservatory of Music Theatre, China --2022

Kangrinboqe (Group), Shenyang Conservatory of Music Theatre, China --2022

-MFA Dance (Interdisciplinary Digital Media and Performance)

 Herberger Institute, ASU, AZ USA

2022-2025

 

-BFA Choreography

Shenyang Conservatory of Music, China

2018-2022

 

-Art Professional Diploma

Zhangjiagang Dance Academy, Suzhou, China

2012-2018

Born

Qinghai, China

2000

International Dance Council (CID) 

 

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

 

National Dance Education Organization (NDEO)
 

Arizona Dance Education Organization (AzDEO)
Executive Assistant: Dustin Loehr

 

Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP)
 

Membership
Teaching
Bibliography

--Instructor of Record
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ | 2022–Present

DCE 134: Contemporary Modern I

DCE 120 Contemporary Modern I

DCE 135 Contemporary Ballet I

DCE 121 Ballet I


--Graduate Teaching Assistant
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ | 2022–Present
DCE 303 The Body Condition(ed)

DCE 202 Dance in U.S. Popular Culture

DCE 302 History of American Hip Hop Dance
 

--Studio Instructor
Arizona Art Academy, Chandler, AZ | 2022–Present
Ballet

Contemporary

Classical Chinese Dance

students ranging from ages 3 to 55 of all levels

Interview

 

2025               

Meet Valkyrie Yao, BOLD JOURNEY, Jan 23, 2025

Interview with Valkyrie Yao, ARTWORK GALLERY

Conversation with Valkyrie Yao, VoyageMia Magazine, Jan 16, 2025

 

2023               

“Valkyrie Yao: Inspirational Interview”, Film Session™ Podcast, Student 

World Impact Film Festival, Jul 20, 2023

 

Website Publication

 

2025               

Shortlist | Beijing International Film Festival · 32nd University Film Festival International Youth Dance Film Unit Initial Evaluation Results Disclosed

Results | The First The Way Dance Video Art Exhibition Results Announced

2025 New Youth International Dance Film Festival List of Award Winners

2025 New Youth International Dance Film Festival, 2025 NYID Selected List

ASU graduate dance student artists to present original work over two weekends, March 26, 2025 by Lacy Chaffee

Diffraction Dance Festival - The Tank

Introducing our choreographers! We are pleased to announce that Valkyrie Yao and Austin Warren Coats will be joining MDP as the inaugural cohort for the Choreographer’s Institute

North Jiang We Dance International Dance Festival | Shortlist for Dance Images

2025 New York Choreographers Showcase Artists, 2025 Dance City Festival New York Choreographers Showcase taking place August 27 & 28 at Dixon Place

2025 Chicago Choreographers Showcase Artists, 2025 Dance City Festival Chicago Choreographers Showcase taking placeAugust 29 & 30 at Ruth Page Center For The Arts

2025 Detroit Choreographers Showcase Artists, 2025 Dance City Festival Detroit Choreographers Showcase taking place September 5 & 6 at the Detroit Institute of Arts 

Introducing our MATCH Choreographers! Dancer auditions at Brockus Project Studios

 

2024               

OUTSIDE DANCE REVIEWS AND COMMENTARY, Viewed Re/Viewed, Off to On by Les | Oct 1, 2024 | Arizona Dance Festival - Tempe 9/19&20/24 

Emerging Artist II: Entropy, Arizona Dance Coalition

Emerging Artist II: ENTROPY, ASU events

 “25th Annual Arizona Dance Festival 2024”, Arizona Dance Coalition, 

September 19@ 7:30 pm -9:30 MST

EXPERIENCED DANCE FILMMAKERS, Film descriptions & credits for Part 2

“Deca: Tiny Dance 2024”, CONDER/dance

“Deca: Tiny Dance 2024”, CONDER/dance

“Daniel Bernard Roumain presents: DBR Lab”, National Sawdust

“AZ Dance Film Festival”, events.com, 11/01/2024

“AZ Dance Film Festival 2024”, methods of madness dance Theatre

“Spring Dance Fest features guest artists, student choreographers”, ASU News, Lacy Chaffee, April 16, 2024 

 

2023               

“Valkyrie Yao: Inspirational Interview”, Film Session™ Podcast, Student 

World Impact Film Festival, Jul 20, 2023

“ASU Student explore digital trust through spoken word, song, and dance”, ASU 

NEWS, October 20, 2023

“A Technology Concept to Increase User Experience for Disabled Guests”“Mugic&Motion- Arizona State University”, Themed Attraction, June 1, 2023

“In Flux: The Bipolar” by Valkyrie Yao”, ASU Documentary Video Art, April 23, 2023

“Insight Art Tours Added to SMOcA programming line up”, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), April 11, 2023

Bio

Valkyrie Yao is a multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, and scholar whose practice resides at the liminality of performing and visual arts, with a theoretical foundation shaped by psychology, ancestral philosophy, and posthuman inquiry. Steeped in Daoist and Buddhist cosmology, their work dissects humanity, reimagines the body as a vessel of metaphor and transformation, and proposes aesthetic languages that decenter anthropocentric worldviews. By positioning symbols within narratives, they complicate fixed notions, traversing cultural traditions, ecological and political entanglements, and symbolic materiality to build sensorial portals toward collective becoming.

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In 2025, their upcoming performances include appearances at Dixon Place Theatre and The Tank NYC in New York City, the Ruth Page Center for the Arts in Chicago, and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Their film Insert Coin to Play was officially selected for the 32nd Beijing International Film Festival and received the New Youth Feature Film Award at the 2025 New Youth International Dance Film Festival. The film also won Best Dance Video Art Film at the 2025 The Way Dance Video Art Exhibition, continuing their exploration of dance and cinematic hybridity. They are also invited to be an artist-in-residence with the MATCH Residency at the Los Angeles Dance Festival and the 2025 Choreographers’ Institute with McKoy Dance Project in New York City, where they will present new work at both Abrons Arts Center and the Mark Morris Dance Center. In 2024, their choreography was featured at National Sawdust. Previous works were presented at the Phoenix Art Museum (2022) and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (2023). That same year, Yao was invited to exhibit at the XV Florence Biennale in Florence, Italy, further cementing their place in the global art sphere.

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Yao’s research has been recognized with numerous international honors. She has been nominated for the Outstanding Dance Education Researcher Award in the 2025 awards cycle by the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) and will present her research at the 2025 NDEO National Conference in Detroit. She received the National Scholarship from the China Scholarship Council, Ministry of Education, for four consecutive years (2018–2021), and was awarded the 2024 Outstanding Research Award by the ASU Graduate Student Government. Yao is also the 2025 Interdisciplinary Arts Fellow with Ballet Arizona. In addition, they are a member of the International Dance Council (CID), which is an official partner of UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – further affirming their active engagement with global dance research and advocacy.

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As a true traveler between worlds—both physical and metaphysical—Yao continues to push the boundaries of art-making, embodying a dynamic fusion of cultural heritage, spiritual philosophy, and the complexities of modern existence. Yao’s practice extends beyond performing and visual arts—it is an act of excavation, a reimagining of overlooked wisdom in contemporary forms. Their work exists as a container, a portal, an invitation to step into the liminal, where unfamiliarity transforms into familiarity.

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