Contemporary Ballet with Min Li

Min Li is an artist and designer who studied traditional Chinese dance at the Beijing Dance Academy before joining the National Ballet of China upon graduation. During his four years with the company, he performed a wide range of roles in both classical ballets and contemporary works.

Min was later awarded a full scholarship to study Contemporary Dance and Choreography at the California Institute of the Arts. During his studies, he received the Excellence in Dance Lorna Strassler Award at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

Following his graduation, Ohad Naharin invited Min to join the Batsheva Dance Ensemble in Israel, where he performed in numerous works by Naharin while also creating his own pieces through the company’s workshop programme.

After his time with Batsheva, Min moved to the Netherlands to explore different artistic styles and cultures across Europe. Invited by Ed Wubbe to join Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, he worked with a range of choreographers while increasingly developing his own choreographic practice, exploring the possibilities of dance and theatre through themes of human emotion, relationships, power, and vulnerability.

Since 2014, Min has worked as an independent artist.

Min also studied fashion design at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK). Where he learned to design and create his own garments with fabric and texture. Fashion has become another dimension where he can explore his creativity and imagination, considering how to create a certain atmosphere and identity with what we wear, how to define beauty and elegance with each individual mind, and how to reveal a certain emotion with texture and shapes. Min would like to combine all his experiences and ideas together to create something authentic both in Dance and Design.