Dance Journeys | Guangmin: People who dance are not just dancing

“I’ve been dancing for 16 years. But for the first 14, I didn’t really know what I was doing.”This is not a story about viral choreography or street dance battles. This is a story about slowness, search, and subtle transformation.From a nightclub dancer to a dance company founder, from a freestyler in the session to a "storyteller" in the theater, Guangmin uses dance to tell not only movements, but also growth, struggles, epiphanies, and freedom.🧑‍🎓 The Accidental BeginningThe summer after he graduated from high school, Guangmin was dragged to a street dance class by a friend. That friend quit after two sessions. Guangmin never stopped.In his hometown of Yanji, a Korean-Chinese region near the border, he studied under a local teacher who had trained in Korea. “He taught everything,” Guangmin recalls. “Hip hop, popping, locking, house, street jazz—no explanations, just movement.”At the time, he didn’t know these were distinct styles. “I thought it was all just ‘street dance.’”When he went to university in Tianjin, he joined the dance club and wanted to continue learning Street Jazz, but was told that the club only taught Popping, so he had no choice but to "dance and learn". "When I learned Popping at that time, I really thought it was ugly. It was very mechanical and boring."It wasn't until a competition judge's show that Xiao Hai's Popping blew him away. "Popping can be so cool."🔄 Chasing the Feeling of FloatingHe saw House for the first time and was mesmerized, "The dancer looked like he was floating, it was totally hard to see how." He loved the smooth, free feeling of House, but didn't have a teacher to teach it. It was after he came to New York that he really started to understand house. He worked as a Data Scientist during the day and went to classes, sessions, and clubs at night, but it was the two years of training with his mentor, Cricket, who would keep repeating a word: Up. "He said, 'You need to find the up.' I didn’t understand what that meant."One night around 1 am, he was practicing dance in the pavilion downstairs. He repeated the same step again and again — and suddenly, it aligned."I saw the trees swaying in the breeze. Their timing matched the music. Matched me. And in that moment, I felt it: this sense of flow, of rising and falling, as if the ground wasn't quite solid. At that moment I realized what 'Up' was. That floating feeling, not by technique, but by all the body parts being 'on frequency'."House is no longer a "movement" for him, but a tuning between body, music, and emotion.🎧 Club Culture as a Spiritual PracticeWhen he first came to New York, he was not used to the club culture.It wasn't until an Afterparty where the DJ Spinna was amazing and the emotions of a Korean House dancer infected him and made him realize, "Club is not a performance, it's a release, it's a way to find your body in music.""When you're in that state, you're not dancing what you were taught, you're dancing what you are."🎭 The Birth of UmamiIn late 2021, during the pandemic’s lull, Guangmin founded a dance company called Umami.It wasn’t just another dance team. It was a dance theater project. Inspired by mentors like Cricket and Bo Park, Guangmin wanted to tell stories, not just perform combos.Unlike ordinary commercial dance companies, he prefers to do "dance theater with expression and narrative". He said he didn't want to be a company that did "routines for competitions".Their first showcase was recorded and shared online. A few months later, festival invitations started rolling in—from Boston, Philadelphia, Austin.They didn’t have slick marketing. Just raw movement. A shared spirit. "It's really just always rehearsing, always creating. cricket taught me: don't get too attached to one movement, create a lot of them, and then choose and tell a story from there."Influenced by Bo Park, he creates in a "life-like" way, using dance to express what is already there in life. "The way you look at a person's walking posture could be the starting point of a set of movements."🌏 Street dance as a cultureIt took over a decade of dancing for Guangmin to understand what many OGs had said all along: Street dance is a culture, not a technique.Under the guidance of his mentor, he began to understand that cypher is not just a battle, but a kind of "emotional communication"; that dancing is not just cool, but a response to oneself, one's community, and even one's ancestors."He's not dancing, he's 'talking' to a friend who passed away."He says this softly, with a choked sob, but it stays in the air for a long time. This "spiritual" feeling began to enter his body and influence his expression. "Street dance is not just a cool move for young people, it is the life of someone who has danced for fifty years, the common memory of a nation, an era, a community."He also began to reflect on his own identity. Two years ago, he went back to his hometown to learn a Korean dance systematically. "Some of the moves in traditional Korean dance are exactly like house." He laughs. “Same bounce. Same rhythm. Just different music.”For him, it confirmed a deeper belief: Dance is universal. Cultures differ, but bodies move similarly when they’re expressing joy, loss, or love."That's why many folk dances and street dances are, simply, connected. Dancing is a form of human expression."🧩 "I work during the day and dance at night, I have no other life."Nowadays, Guangmin works on data science during the day and practices dancing or rehearsals at night. He tries to compress his work efficiency to the limit, just to give the dance a little more space in his limited energy."I have no other life."He says it lightly, but with a certain gentle firmness.He was occasionally confused, tired, and yanked out of rhythm by reality. But he knew that dancing was a part of his life, as natural as eating and sleeping.The link to the original podcast in Chinese: Ep1, Ep2Contact Him:ins @guangminshen; his dance company Umami: @umamiplayground This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thetrygirl.substack.com