
Performances & Exhibitions
Education
Upcoming
Nigaogemao (Installation Art)
XV Florence Biennale, Florence, Italy--2025
​​
Off to On (Choreography)
Diffraction Dance Festival--2025
The Tank NYC, NY
​
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
​
Insert Coin to Play (Film Screening)
The 32nd Dance Films of International Youth Unit--2025
Beijing International Film Festival, Beijing, China
​
Insert Coin to Play (Film)
New Youth International Dance Film Festival--2025
​
MATCH Residency
Los Angeles Dance Festival--2025
Brockus Project Studios
​
2025 Choreographer’s Institute Residency
2025 cohort of the Choreographer’s Institute
McKoy Dance Project || MDP, New York City, NY
​
Deluge, Undone (Choreography)
Spring Dance Festival--2025
Galvin Playhouse
​
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
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
Diffraction Dance Festival - The Tank
North Jiang We Dance International Dance Festival | Shortlist for Dance Images
Introducing our MATCH Choreographers! Dancer auditions at Brockus Project Studios
2024
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
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
“In Flux: The Bipolar” by Valkyrie Yao”, ASU Documentary Video Art, April 23, 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.
​
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.
​
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.
​
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.