Fang-Yi Sheu: Yilan 1971, from Martha Graham Dance Company Principal to 2024 Golden Horse Film Festival Visual Dance Designer

30-second overview: Fang-Yi Sheu was born in Yilan in 1971 and went to the United States after graduating from the Dance Department of Taipei National University of the Arts.¹ In 1995, she auditioned and joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York,¹ and was promoted to principal dancer in 1999.¹ She received praise from The New York Times in 2005. She returned to Taiwan in 2007 to found LAFA, which ended in 2010.² The documentary Salute was released in 2020. In 2024, she designed the visual dance for the Golden Horse Film Festival.³

1971, Yilan

Fang-Yi Sheu was born in Yilan in 1971 to a family with no connection to the arts. She enrolled in a children's dance class as an elementary student and was admitted to the Dance Department of the National Institute of the Arts (now Taipei National University of the Arts) for junior high, completing formal training there.¹

After graduating, she decided to go to New York, where she supported herself with odd jobs in her early years while constantly auditioning for dance companies.

Sheu has repeatedly spoken about this period in interviews, calling it a necessary process of "discovering what she was capable of." Those years of working and auditioning gave her a clear-eyed understanding of her physical abilities and her position in the market before she ever joined the Martha Graham Dance Company.

Joined the Company in 1995, Principal in 1999

In 1995, Fang-Yi Sheu passed her audition and joined the Martha Graham Dance Company.¹ She did not become principal in 1995: she started as a company member and was promoted to principal dancer in 1999.¹

The Graham Company's audition process is itself a first filter: dancers from around the world compete for these positions. When Sheu passed her audition, she was one of the very few Asian dancers to enter this殿堂 in the 1990s. In the New York modern dance world, her presence broke an unspoken geographical bias: high-level physical language training does not happen only in Europe and America.

During her time with the company, Sheu performed Graham's classic works including Diversion of Angels and Night Journey, earning praise from New York dance critics. In 2005, The New York Times called her "one of the most compelling dancers" (exact wording pending further verification).¹

The core of Graham technique is "contraction and release"—a movement language centered on the spine, emphasizing emotional tension expressed through shifts in the body's center of gravity. Sheu rose from company member to principal within this system, which means she was able to tell her own stories in Graham's vocabulary. Technical mastery was the entry ticket; that is the standard for a principal.

Founding LAFA: Returning to Taiwan for Dance Education and Cross-Disciplinary Experimentation

In 2007, Fang-Yi Sheu returned to Taiwan and founded "LAFA" (Life Art For All).² LAFA was not only a dance company but also engaged in education and cross-disciplinary collaboration. In 2010, LAFA ended.

(Note: Some sources incorrectly list the founding year as 2008; 2007 is used here.)

The decision to return to Taiwan and found LAFA was a deliberate pivot she made after having already secured her position as a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company. This choice reflects a sense of responsibility toward dance that went beyond performing on the highest stage—it included bringing what she had learned in New York back to Taiwan and finding corresponding ground there. LAFA ended in 2010, but its three years left behind a model of cross-disciplinary collaboration and dance education practice.

Documentary *Salute*: The Body as Knowledge

In 2020, the documentary Salute was released, chronicling Fang-Yi Sheu's dance career. The title Salute is itself a statement of position: the things she chose to do were not necessarily what others thought she should do. This attitude runs through her entire trajectory—from Yilan to New York, from Graham to LAFA. Every choice she made was a concrete practice of "salute."

In the 2020 documentary Salute and in a 2025 interview, Sheu repeatedly discussed the limitations of the body as a tool for dance and the question of how to coexist with aging. Her position is this: a dancer's life does not end with stage performances. Understanding the body is itself a form of knowledge. Regardless of what the body can do, this knowledge can be taught, transmitted, and put to continued use. This attitude is the core proposition of her transition from a technically trained dancer with the Martha Graham Company to an educator and public speaker.

Golden Horse Film Festival Visual Design and the Topic of Bodily Aging

In 2024, Fang-Yi Sheu designed the visual dance for the Golden Horse Film Festival, using physical movement to run through the visual identity.³ In 2025, she gave media interviews on the topic of bodily aging and the transition of a dancer's career.⁴

The Golden Horse Film Festival's choice to use dance as the language of its visual identity, with Sheu at the center, speaks to how Taiwan's cultural sphere positions her: she is one of the representative symbols of contemporary body art in Taiwan. "Dancer" is already the smallest possible description. Visual design requires no dialogue, no set—only a body: her body.

(Note: Claims that she "appeared in Ang Lee's films" could not be verified with specific works and have been removed from this article.)

Common narrative → more precise reading: Fang-Yi Sheu is often described as "the first Taiwanese to reach the rank of principal at a top international modern dance company," and this framing is accurate. But the more interesting question is: how did she do it? The answer is not innate talent or serendipity, but rather four years (1995–1999) spent within the Graham technique system, rising from company member to principal. The significance of this trajectory is methodological, not merely a matter of achievement.

🎙️ Curator's note: Fang-Yi Sheu's career with the Martha Graham Dance Company is one of the few complete stories in the history of Taiwan's performing arts development abroad: she entered, reached the highest level, and came back. All three steps happened in full, and each step had a clear rationale.

When she returned to Taiwan in 2007 to found LAFA, it was not because the Martha Graham Dance Company had no place for her—she was choosing to bring resources back to Taiwan. This choice was not negated when LAFA ended in 2010. She continued performing, continued teaching, and continued to exert influence within Taiwan's dance ecosystem.

The 2024 Golden Horse Film Festival visual design and the 2025 interviews on bodily aging show that her career narrative was not frozen at some "peak" but has continued to redefine what a dancer can be as her body changes.

Taiwan's modern dance scene developed rapidly after the 1990s, and beyond Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, a more diverse dance landscape emerged. Sheu's choice to return from the Martha Graham Dance Company was grounded in a clear judgment: she believed she could bring to Taiwan's modern dance ecosystem what the Graham system had cultivated. The vision behind this judgment is another dimension of her identity beyond being a dancer.

After returning to Taiwan, she taught at Taipei National University of the Arts and various dance schools, bringing the systematic training of Graham technique into the bodies of Taiwanese students. This pedagogical transmission continued in different forms after LAFA ended. Her students have gone on to develop within Taiwan's dance scene, and the rooting of Graham vocabulary in Taiwan was in part accomplished through Sheu's teaching.

From Yilan to New York odd jobs and auditions, from Graham principal to founding LAFA, to the Golden Horse visual design—Fang-Yi Sheu's career is not a story of success frozen in place, but a long-term record of a person in continuous dialogue between body and art, constantly redefining her own position.

Her most frequently cited proposition is "the body is a tool for understanding the world." This statement took on more concrete meaning as she transitioned from stage performance to education and public discourse: anyone can find a more conscious way of being through understanding their own body. The knowledge of the body is not the exclusive province of dancers.

This proposition has extended her influence beyond the boundaries of the dance profession. Her speeches and interviews have found audiences in Taiwan's corporate and education sectors. The proposition of "the body's wisdom" touches a common question for anyone who needs to manage their own state of being—a dance background is the entry point, not the threshold.

Further reading: Fang-Yi Sheu — Wikipedia ｜ CommonWealth Magazine: Fang-Yi Sheu ｜ National Culture and Arts Foundation

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