Asian American and Pacific Islander stories told through dance at new festival

As a little girl watching those old, Hollywood musicals on television with her parents, Joyce Lien Kushner remembers running to find any dress or skirt that would unfurl when she twirled, and proceed to jump and spin all over the family’s living room. She would make up her own little dances and begged her mom for dance lessons, but they didn’t have enough money for that, at the time.

“I begged for dance classes, but was only able to go when my mom found something that was practically free; just getting my tap shoes was an expenditure,” she says. Still, those early years would eventually lead to dance team and dance classes in high school, and opportunities that culminated in her founding and directing TILTshift Dance, a collective of dancers, teachers, and choregraphers, and co-organizing the Asian American Dance Festival, taking place Aug. 23 to 31. The festival will feature performances that center Asian American and Pacific Islander stories at multiple locations, including the Light Box Theater in Liberty Station in Point Loma, the City Heights Performance Annex, the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park, and Saville Theater at San Diego City College.

Her parents had each immigrated to Los Angeles from Taiwan in the mid-1960s. Her father had a literature degree and struggled with English, but was determined to get his engineering degree; he worked in a grocery store in the mornings, took classes at Cal State Los Angeles during the day, studied in the evenings, and worked an overnight shift at the L.A. Times as an ad checker. That’s where he met Kushner’s mother, and a group of Taiwanese students working at the newspaper. Her mom came to the U.S. to earn a master’s in chemistry and was studying at the University of Southern California on a scholarship. A year into her graduate program, she dropped out of school and became a wife and mother to Kushner and her younger brother. The family moved to Del Mar when she was 5 and her dad eventually started his own engineering firm, with her mom taking accounting classes and running the administrative side of the business. She remembers the need to save money during those earlier years, with her mom making a lot of matching outfits for herself and the kids.

“Eventually, when my dad’s business grew and we had a little more to spend, my Asian parents didn’t view dance as worthy,” she says, opting instead to enroll her in piano lessons, and violin for her brother. But she channeled her parents’ work ethic into her own desire to be a dancer, and made sure that she excelled in school and kept up with piano, so that she could continue dancing. It worked.

Today, Kushner, 58, lives in Del Mar with her husband, Mike, and their son, Maxwell. In addition to TILTshift Dance, she was awarded an 18-month artist residency by the NTC Foundation at Liberty Station in 2024; currently teaches at Lynch Dance Institute and Malashock Dance, as well as guest teaches throughout San Diego County; and serves on the board of Disco Riot. She took some time to talk about her work to help build a community of dance artists, and centering the voices and stories of AAPI dancers at this upcoming festival.

Q: You founded TILTshift Dance in 2015 in San Francisco before returning to your hometown of Del Mar in 2019. Tell us about the purpose you envisioned for this collective?

A: Originally, TILTshift Dance worked as a collective group of dance artists, working and teaching together. Now, in the San Diego community, TILTshift Dance has evolved as I have evolved as an artist. I’ve focused TILTshift Dance to be more in service to the dance community. I’ve prioritized providing opportunities for dance artists to cultivate their dance making practice.

First, there’s OpenLAB, which is open communal studio space for dance artists to work on their craft. It’s an idea I took from all those communal office spaces that are popular with entrepreneurs. I hold OpenLAB whenever I have studio space to offer.

Next there’s ChoreoLAB and ChoreoWreck. ChoreoLAB is a series of choreographic workshops that I’ve crafted to provide dance makers with tools they can use in the creation process. ChoreoWreck is my version of “wrecking,” a unique choreographic research practice that I’ve introduced to the dance community here. Wrecking was developed by Susan Rethorst (author of “A Choreographic Mind”) out in New York, and it was introduced to me by one of my mentors, Christy Funsch. In this practice, a choreographer (the wreckee) invites another choreographer (the wrecker) to remake the wreckee’s dance as a way to get honest feedback. This process can be in a rehearsal or class/workshop setting, or it can be done publicly, live in front of an audience. Not only as a way to investigate one’s choreographic material, I see ChoreoWreck as a tool for changing the power dynamics of dancer, choreographer, and director. I also see it as a unique way to engage dance audiences, allowing them to witness the dance making process. Through ChoreoWreck, I believe that empathy is fostered, along with a deeper understanding for the creative dance process.

Lastly, and my biggest endeavor yet, I’m bringing the Asian American Dance Festival to life, providing a platform for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) dance artists to celebrate our work and uplift our stories.

What I love about Del Mar…

If you can’t already guess by my answer to the previous question, it’s the beaches! 

Q: You danced professionally in Los Angeles in the ’80s and ’90s before leaving dance behind in your late 20s and entering the corporate world. What brought you back to dance at 46? And, how would you describe the transition back into this art form at that time in your life?

A: That’s kind of a funny story. By the time my son was born, I had completely stopped dancing. The itch to move was always present, so I would do a little yoga and stretching on my own, but that was it.

Then, in 2013, I was watching “So You Think You Can Dance,” and the little powerhouse dancer, Amy Yakima, did a solo that exuded the same strength, power, and grace that grabbed me when I first saw the women of (Alvin) Ailey. I wanted to move and feel like that again, so I started to seek out dance classes. I was 46 and thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll try the YMCA and see if I can still dance.’ I found a ballet class, and it all came rushing back. I was encouraged by the teacher to check out City College of San Francisco (CCSF) where they taught modern and which I desperately wanted to return to. That led me back to the Graham technique, taught by a woman known only as Luana. Luana and CCSF are what truly brought me back, and in a new way.

When I left dance in the ’90s, I was feeling beaten down and a little bitter. Dance stereotypes were true back then-weight and age were big factors, and teachers and directors could be quite harsh. I don’t really blame them, as that’s how they were taught, and groomed, themselves. Luana was this gorgeous, petite Black woman in her late 50s (or older) who could move better than most of her 20-something-year-old students. I was inspired, and studying Graham again with her felt like coming home. At the college, I took all sorts of dance classes: jazz, ballet, tango, improvisation, and dance composition. I even took online courses in dance anatomy and dance history. Finally, in a college dance setting, I was ravenous to learn everything and became a dance nerd. I also met several other teachers there who welcomed me and encouraged me to find my dance self once again. The jazz teacher was the first to invite me to perform…and it was my first time back on stage since I left at 27. It was also the first time my husband and son got to see me dance! (That teacher) invited me to join her dance company, Strong Pulse, and I was 47 and dancing with 20-year-olds. Suddenly, I was performing all the time and even started to substitute teach classes when a teacher was out.

Q: As part of your work in your residency at Liberty Station, you’re presenting the Asian American Dance Festival, focused on dancers and stories from Asian American and Pacific Islander artists. What motivated you to create a dance festival specifically centered around AAPI voices?

A: There are four events, all on separate days and in different venues. As second-generation Taiwanese Americans, my younger brother and I were raised in the middle-class White neighborhoods of San Diego during the 1970s and ’80s. Like many children of immigrants, we watched our parents sacrifice and work hard to realize the American dream. However, we had few Asian role models outside of family, and I had not a single one in dance. Often being the only Asian in social settings shaped my early views of society and myself, especially being American born. The myth of the “model minority” was strong in my family. As an Asian female, I kept my head down, worked hard, dodged veiled innuendos, and tried not to let the microaggressions get to me. I lived and moved in a liminal space, always bridging communities, but never truly belonging; sometimes I was too Asian, sometimes too American, and always never enough.

Attending UCLA in the mid-’80s, I found myself surrounded and befriended by other U.S.-born Asians and, for the first time, I felt a sense of true community with people who understood me. While in Los Angeles, I joined a multi-racial dance company, directed by an African American man from L.A.’s inner city. I watched our director, who grew up amidst gang violence, use his dance company and school to make a difference, providing opportunities to the kids and parents of his community. As a teacher, I saw first-hand the impact on them, elevating their sense of self-worth and potential. I saw how dance could bring together and uplift a community, and it left a strong impression on me.

Fast-forward to 2017 in San Francisco and I worked on a project with Five Feet Dance, centering AAPI women. We came from diverse Asian heritages and spanned ages 20s to 50s. This was the first time any of us had addressed our racial identities through dance. We spent months excavating our personal histories, learning of our unique yet shared experience of being Asian and American and female, traumas and all. We unearthed a bond and friendship we didn’t know we needed. Upon presenting our work, we discovered how much our presence in dance meant to others. Our AAPI audience members would engage with us after performances and express deep gratitude. We realized how important our stories and our presence were, igniting my desire to develop an Asian American dance festival.

Now, back in my hometown of San Diego, I have been fortunate to meet several other AAPI dance artists, teachers, and educators who also share a desire for a dance avenue that centers our communities. I am particularly lucky to have met grace shinhae jun (dance educator and community activist) who joins me on this journey. Together, we are passionate about providing AAPI dance artists the opportunity to explore our collective histories, traumas, and celebrations, to share these stories in our own voices, and to have visibility and representation in the larger community.

Q: What can you share about some of these dance storytellers? And what their stories will say during the festival?

A: These dance storytellers come from the entire AAPI diaspora. They are of different cultural heritages. They are different ages and come from different socio-economic backgrounds. They practice a wide variety of dance forms, including contemporary, ballet, jazz, hip hop, and traditional cultural dances. With all of this diversity, yet shared immigrant histories, their stories will reflect that. Some may tell stories of opportunity and joy, while other may tell stories of hardship and traumas. As multi-cultural people, we all share stories of cultural confrontations and assimilation. We share stories of melding our immigrant heritage and our American identity.

Q: In sharing your artistic philosophy, you’ve mentioned your point of view that dance is “a form of embodied storytelling, through which we can explore our individual and collective histories, identities, morals, passions…” and that dance can ultimately help people find connections, empathy, release and “even solutions to our human quandries.” Can you talk about what dancing has shown you about your own history and identity?

A: The piece that I’m presenting at the festival’s mainstage showcase is a good example of this. Entitled “bài bài 拜拜,” this work investigates our relationship to our familial female lineages as a daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters of Asian immigrants. Through the rituals of ancestor worship, the dancers and I honor our foremothers and discover our connections to them. We uncover what has passed on to us, recognizing gestures of daily life, as well as societal expectations-obedient objects of beauty, tireless family caretakers, domestic beasts of burden. We acknowledge the ancestral weight we bear, the past struggles we continue to wrestle with, and the joy and resilience we boldly embody.

In developing this work, I first looked at my own foremothers. I asked about the stories of those I never met, and I remembered the personas of those I did. I had great grandmothers with bound feet who were married off with dowries and expected to be seen and not heard. I had a strong grandmother and vivacious aunts who worked tirelessly serving their families and sacrificing their own needs. I learned how I was similar to many of them and thought of how I would have behaved had I lived under their circumstances. I also came to understand why my own mother made the choices that she did and why she expected me to behave a certain way. In making this work with my dancers, I asked them to research their foremothers as well, and reflect on what they admired and what they disagreed with. Through discussion and sharing, we developed movement to express both our admiration and our struggles. As a group we discovered similarities, and in our differences, we found support in mutual understanding, an understanding that our non-Asian friends could never quite get. We used this research as inspiration to create the dance. Through our shared movement, we came together to honor, grieve, and celebrate.

Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

A: There’s a mantra I have come to live by that, “All roads lead to now.” I honestly believe that all that we’ve experienced in our past, both good and bad, has allowed us to be who we are now, doing what we do now, and being with the folks we are with now. So, if there is good in your life now, it is because of all that has come before.

Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?

A: People are always surprised to learn that I once started and ran a fair-trade, organic chocolate company for seven years. It was called Coco-Zen. I started it after my son was born and closed up shop when dance found me again.

Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.

A: That’s easy, it’s spent walking on the beaches of Del Mar with my husband and son, preferably after a week of wonderful, full-bodied dancing!