Originally from Chengdu, China, Jingqiu Guan is a filmmaker, choreographer, scholar and dancer. She currently teaches at Duke University as an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Dance. Jingqiu makes interdisciplinary performance works and dance films that engage with social issues and cultural memories. Jingqiu has presented her dance films and documentaries in a number of film festivals in the US, the UK, India, Norway, Spain, Austria, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Mexico, mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan. Centering voices and expressions of women, immigrants, people of color, as well as people of disabilities, her works explore cultural identities, motherhood, and address issues of racial and disability justice.
Jingqiu’s most recent dance film First Dance 2.0 (2023) was selected as a winner at the Dance in Focus Film Festival: Reflections and was presented at the Music Center in downtown LA. Her dance film The Weight of Sugar (2021) won the “Outstanding Direction Award” from Manifest Dance-Film Festival in India and “Best Dance Film Award” from Black Lives Rising Dance Film Festival. Her dance documentary Family Portrait (2019) received the “Chinese Screendance Maker Award” from Hong Kong’s Jumping Frames International Video Dance Festival, a major award from San Francisco Dance Film Festival and the “Grand Jury Award” from Chicago’s In Motion Dance Film Festival. She is currently in post-production of a feature documentary that explores the intersection of dance and motherhood.
Besides creating dance for the screen and the stage, Jingqiu has also been collaborating with leading dance and theater artists to design and create visual projections for live performances presented in venues such as the Apollo Theater, Brooklyn Museum, with the LA Philharmonic, at the Skirball Cultural Center and at various universities. Recently, she completed the post-production of a feature concert film on the award-winning hip hop theater production Lyrics from Lockdown, directed and performed by Tony nominated and Emmy award winning artist Bryonn Bain.
As a scholar, Jingqiu has published her research in the International Journal of Screendance Studies, Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, The Journal of Media Practice, Arts, and Education and Dialogs com a arte. Jingqiu has earned a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA, an MFA in Dance Performance from the University of Iowa, an Ed.M from Harvard, and a B.A in Economics and French from Saint Mary’s College (IN).
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