Two Dancers, One Stage: Andrew and Alison on Life With Shen Yun

They met as dancers sharing the same stage. Years later, they are still telling stories together—just from different sides of the curtain.

In this episode of Bay Area Innovators, host Steve Ispas sits down with Andrew Fung and Alison Chen, two classical Chinese dancers who came to the art form from opposite directions. Alison grew up in San Jose and left California as a teenager to train at Feitian Academy. Andrew was studying biomedical engineering at UC Davis and had never danced at all.

Now, 18 years later, Andrew is still a principal dancer with Shen Yun. Alison, a gold medalist at the NTD International Classical Chinese Dance Competition, serves as Dance Department Chair at Fei Tian College Northern Campus, training the next generation.

They talk about the audience moment that changed why Alison dances, why perseverance became the lesson that outlasted everything else, and what innovation means inside a tradition with strict boundaries. They also discuss the documentary “Unbroken: The Untold Story of Shen Yun,” screening in San Francisco.