CLASSES / INSTRUCTORS
Cindy Johnson
ballet, Chinese dance
Cindy grew up in Washington State training in multiple studios and styles including traditional Chinese dance. While in Seattle, she started her Chinese training under Melody Xie and spent 10 years under the direction of Li Hengda at Hengda Dance Academy. She received her BFA in Dance from Western Washington University (2019) where she danced with Graffiti Dance Theatre for two seasons and was honored to perform works by Leslie Krause, Rachel Lincoln, and Nolan Dennett among others. After moving to Chicago, Cindy was a founding member of Echo Modern Dance Collective (2019-20), danced with Identity Performing Arts, and was a performing apprentice for Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre for the 2021 season. At Cerqua Rivera, Cindy was honored to perform a solo work by Eddy Ocampo and group pieces Katlin Bourgeois, Monique Haley, and Shannon Alvis. In 2021, Cindy expanded her dance journey to Aerial Dance Chicago where she is a company dancer and instructor under the direction of Chloe Jensen. She is grateful to Yin He for the opportunity to be back in the Chinese dance community as both a dancer and instructor.
JUDY LIU
Chinese dance
Judy's interest in dance began at five years old under the instruction of Pao Ling Ling. She was previously the president of Jade, the Chinese dance club at Walter Payton College Prep. Along with Sabrina, they led their team to a platinum ranking at the Tao Li Cup Midwestern Regionals in the 2017-18 school year and to the gold ranking at Tao Li Cup in New York in 2019. Her time with Yin He exposed her to the various genres of Chinese dance and even ballet. Currently, she is a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She plans to have a career in the dental industry as well as continue to dance with Yin He. Judy is looking forward to doing great things with Yin He Dance.
LAUREN SHENG
Kpop
Hi, my name is Lauren! I am the KPOP instructor here at Yin He Dance. I have been dancing for 17 years now and have been a KPOP fan for 13 years! My favorite groups are EXO, SHINee, Girls' Generation, ITZY, and NewJeans. On my off days, I love to workout, play video games, and go on solo dates!
Angela Tam
ballet, Chinese dance
Angela grew up as an extremely shy girl in Chicago Chinatown. She barely spoke outside of home, but couldn’t shut up when things made her excited. One thing that has always excited her is dance! Her love for dance always shines through when she is teaching and we hope it’s worth the sometimes awkward conversation you have to make with her. She is still working on how to seem like a normal human being.
Angela began learning Chinese dance as a young girl from Qiuyue Jin. She later moved to New York City for school and work and continued learning Chinese dance from Margaret Yuen and Grant Zhuang. In 2015, she decided that there’s no place like home and returned to Chicago to found Yin He Dance. She also has training in ballet and classical Japanese dance.
Angela is a multi-year recipient of the Ethnic & Folk Arts Master Apprentice Grant from Illinois Arts Council Agency, most recently in 2022. She received her BA in East Asian Studies from New York University and holds a certificate in Arts and Culture Strategy from the University of Pennsylvania.
When not dancing, she likes to eat baked goods. To learn more about her and see pictures of her cat Billy, follow her on Instagram @isawastar.