- about -
Photo by Bill Cameron, 2019
MAGNOLIA YANG SAO YIA is a daughter of HMoob refugees and a former undocumented immigrant. Born in Cholet, France, she was raised on lands first stewarded by Anishinaabe and Dakota peoples (Metro Detroit, MI and Twin Cities, MN).
She is a dance artist and Ph.D. candidate in Critical Dance Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Southeast Asian Studies at University of California, Riverside (UCR). In 2015, Magnolia was the first HMoob person to attain a BFA in Dance from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She also received a Minor in Asian American Studies. She currently lives and works on Chumash and Tongva lands (Inglewood, CA).
SCHOLARLY RESEARCH
Magnolia’s dissertation project examines the practice of Hmong dance in the U.S. diaspora. Working from a transnational feminist and decolonial praxis, she works to activate a cultural politic of HMoob self-determination that is critical of colonial and imperial value systems, especially those that subjugate difference. Her research has been supported by UCR’s Dissertation Year Program Fellowship (2022-2023), the Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship (2017-2022), multiple Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts Fellowships (2018-2022), the Department of Dance Graduate Research Fellowship (2021), and the Graduate Mentorship Program Fellowship (2020-2021), among others.
DANCING & MAKING
Magnolia is a dance theater choreographer who works to activate dancers’ bodily histories and knowledges, including her own, on stage (the stage as an expansive term). Her work ranges from self-performed solo works and ensemble works and often centers the Hmong American woman subject as the site of feminist inquiry and critique. Her choreographic methodology is influenced by Dr. Ananya Chatterjea’s social justice methodology of dance theater making, and informed by her performance experience and cultural activist work as a dance company member of Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT) for six seasons. Magnolia has presented her work at PiYoDa Flow, 20 FT BEAR STUDIOS, and FRANKIE in Los Angeles, Axis Lab in Chicago, and more widely in Minnesota such as the Walker Art Center, Cowles Center, Carleton College, TU Dance School, Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, and Pillsbury House + Theater, to name a few. Although trained in many dance forms and techniques, Magnolia primarily moves in Yorchha™ (ADT’s contemporary dance technique), House dance, and modern dance techniques and aesthetics.
IG: magnoliaysy | Vimeo
