Liu Yan is a classical Chinese dancer. She has performed in many dance dramas and won many dance competitions in and outside

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Early life

As a child, Liu had a passion for classical Chinese dance. She started dancing when she was only 9 years old. When she was 10 years old, Liu gained admission to the Beijing Dance Academy middle school. When she was 11 years old, in 1993, she entered the Beijing Dance Academy middle school. Liu later enrolled at the

Beijing Dance Academy The Beijing Dance Academy (BDA, ) is a municipal public professional dance college at Haidian, Beijing. The academy is the highest institution for dance education and assessment in the People's Republic of China, conducting the nationwide teache ...

at the age of 18. During her education, she studied professional dancing with a major in classical Chinese dance, ultimately graduating in 2003.

Career

Liu has performed in the 2007

CCTV New Year's Gala The ''CCTV New Year's Gala'', also known as the ''Spring Festival Gala'', and commonly abbreviated in Chinese as ''Chunwan'', is a Chinese New Year special produced by China Media Group (CMG). It is broadcast annually on the eve of Chinese N ...

, alongside some of the nation's most famous people. She has also won some of the nation's most prestigious awards for dance and drama. Liu was chosen to be the lead dancer in the "

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

" segment at the Beijing 2008 Olympics opening ceremony. Twelve days before the actual performance, on 27 July, she fell from a malfunctioning moving platform during an evening rehearsal at the

Beijing National Stadium The National Stadium (), also known as the Bird's Nest (), is an 80,000-capacity stadium in Beijing. The stadium was jointly designed by architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron from Basel-based architecture team Herzog & de Meuron, p ...

. She was rushed to a local military hospital to undergo six hours of surgery. Her accident resulted in nerve and spinal damage, paralyzing her lower body. In March 2010, Liu established the ''Liu Yan Arts Special Fund'', to help unfortunate children in poverty-stricken areas, orphans, and migrant workers' children through an art education. Since March 2010, she has been giving classes at the

. As reported in 2012, she is pursuing a doctorate degree in Dance theory at the

. In 2016, Liu published her research about hand gestures of classical Chinese dance in a book called ''Dance with Hands: Research of the Hand Dance in Chinese Classical Dances''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liu, Yan 1982 births Chinese female dancers Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Educators from Beijing People with paraplegia Beijing Dance Academy alumni