Yingge dance: Connecting UTM students to the past and present
UTM students stepped into one of Toronto’s top multicultural festivals through a Yingge dance performance at the seventh Toronto Dragon Festival.

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A Yingge dance performance made its Canadian debut at the seventh Toronto Dragon Festival (TDF), which took place from September 4 to September 6 at Nathan Phillips Square.

Among the performers was Summer Qiu, a second-year UTM student majoring in biology with minors in psychology and forensic science. “When we stood on the stage and saw people from all over the world watching us, we suddenly realized that we were performing at City Hall,” Qiu recalled.

Qiu was one of the UTM students who spent much of her summer learning Yingge, a traditional performance from the Chaoshan region of Guangdong, China that combines dance, martial arts movements, painted faces, and wooden sticks.

Bringing Yingge to Toronto

Yingge, sometimes called a “Chinese war dance,” is part of China’s national list of intangible cultural heritage. 

Jian Zhang, founder of the TDF and chair of its organizing committee, shared that he had wanted to bring Yingge to Canada for years. The effort was also welcomed by David Zhang, the festival’s chief director since its first edition. However, despite several earlier attempts, the idea only became possible this year, and organizing the performance still came with major challenges. 

“Chair Jian Zhang has been a driving force behind the Dragon Festival,” David said. “He spent a tremendous amount of time bringing Yingge to the festival this year, and the response from visitors was very positive.”

The addition of Yingge reflects the festival’s broader approach to balancing tradition with new programming. Since its first edition in 2018, the TDF has grown quickly by combining traditional Chinese culture with contemporary programming.  The three-day festival now attracts more than 100,000 visitors each year and has become one of Toronto’s major multicultural festivals. 

Recruiting the young performers

Jian and the other organizers recruited performers from Toronto to build a dance group from scratch. Anna Bian, director of the Toronto Drama Troupe and a member of the TDF organizing committee, helped recruit and organize performers. Bian explained that Yingge requires young performers because it “combines martial arts, dance, Chinese opera and some other Chinese moves… [that] requires a lot of strength and agility.”

Qiu joined the Yingge team because of her interest in traditional Chinese culture. After participating in a training session, Qiu also invited Jierun Xu, a UTM student specializing in statistics, to the Yingge dance preparation.

Xu shared that before joining the team, he had never learned or performed it himself. “I thought it was a good opportunity to actually experience something myself,  instead of just watching it through videos online.” Xu said.

Xiaoyun Ling, a UTM student majoring in economics and communication, culture, information and technology joined the Yingge team after hearing about it through UTM’s Sol Dance Club. 

“I first heard about the Toronto Dragon Festival and the Yingge performance through conversations with other club members,” Ling said. “It sounded like such a unique opportunity—not just to dance, but to be part of something that carried real cultural weight and history behind it.”

Late-night practices and preparation

One of the major roadblocks for the team was learning a Yingge dance without a professional Yingge instructor physically present in Toronto. Originally, Jian Zhang planned to bring experienced Yingge instructors from China to train the performers, but the arrangement fell through. The local team ended up learning from instructional videos and remote guidance from a Yingge coach in China.

Another challenge was getting such a large group to come together. Bian recalled that participants went to rehearsal after work. Ling, who was completing an internship during the summer, was one such instance. 

Participants would arrive at around 8:30 p.m. or 9 p.m. and stay until 11 p.m. With the performance date looming closer, the team also did weekend rehearsals that lasted several hours. Qiu shared that this schedule lasted for roughly two months.

“We always had to squeeze rehearsals after work hours,” Ling reminisced. “Even though it was exhausting, it was also incredibly enriching.” 

The final performance: Sharing Chinese culture and connecting with the community 

The Yingge dance also gave the students a new way to experience Toronto’s multiculturalism. For Ling, the performance made Toronto’s multiculturalism feel less abstract. 

“It’s one thing to hear about multiculturalism in a classroom setting. But it’s a completely different thing to stand in a public square, in traditional costume, and directly feel that openness and curiosity from people of all backgrounds.”

Cynthia Yeung, a UTM graduate and a member of the TDF Yingge team, shared that performing alongside other UTM students gave her a new perspective on traditional Chinese culture.

“Culture is not just something from the past,” Yeung said. “It can continue to grow and be shared through new generations…. Traditional culture can be presented in many different ways and still connect with young people today.”

Yeung added, “Performing Yingge in Toronto made me feel proud to share a part of Chinese culture with people from different cultural backgrounds.”

A key moment for Xu was standing near the Toronto sign at City Hall during the Dragon Festival. Being surrounded by the crowds and performances made him feel like he was a part of the Toronto community, rather than simply studying in this city. 

Qiu had a similar experience and described the performance as a chance to move “from campus into the Toronto community.” 

The performance also left a strong impact on the young performers including all the students from UTM. Jian Zhang shared that some young performers were initially only attracted to how energetic and powerful Yingge looked, but as they practiced for the performance, their interest in the dance’s cultural story grew.

Bian said that she would like to see more local middle-school and high-school students take part in the future, including young Chinese Canadians who may have had limited exposure to traditional Chinese culture.

For the UTM students, the experience was more than a performance—it was a way to connect with both their cultural roots and the wider Toronto community.

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