Hope in the moves

To keep up with the classes, Xin, who barely spoke English back then, taught herself words for different parts of the body.

"I started from zero at the dance school (in the US), where I learned true modern dance. Though the beginning was very tough for me, I now feel powerful and real when I dance to Graham's pieces," Xin says.

After a year of training, Xin became a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company and danced with Fang-Yi Sheu, a former principal dancer of the group. In 2015, she became a soloist of the company and performed with other members at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

"It was the first time I'd performed in China after I had gone to New York. It was also the first time that my mother watched me dance (after leaving Sichuan)," she says.

Her mother had asked her to return to China.

"It was hard for her to understand why I would leave my stable teaching job to pursue modern dance abroad", Xin says, adding that after the NCPA performance in 2015, "she was convinced that her daughter is a good dancer".

Xin became the principal dancer of the US dance company-the first from the Chinese mainland-the following year. When Janet Eilber, the artistic director and a former principal dancer of the company, told her about the promotion, Xin says she cried.

Xin is still emotional about that moment.

From 2013 to 2015, she conducted master classes on Graham's techniques for students at the Beijing Dance Academy. She continues to teach them in China. She's also planning a multimedia exhibition introducing the techniques through Graham's important dance pieces that will premiere in Shanghai in May.

"We want to display different emotions that are delivered through Martha Graham's works, such as fear in Errand into the Maze, grief in Lamentation and destructive love in Cave of the Heart."