In the April issue of Dance Spirit, modern dancer Nico Li shares her journey from a military performing academy in her native China to a freelance career in NYC. As a young girl, Nico trained in Chinese classical and folk dance. Today, she occasionally performs these styles with the New York Chinese Cultural Center.

To get a taste of Chinese classical and folk dance, DS turned to NYCCC, which hosts Dance China NY, one of the country’s only companies dedicated to performing Chinese dance and creating Chinese modern dance. This video features Dance NY and NYCCC's School of the Arts students performing excerpts from a range of pieces including a Harvest Drum Dance, a Mongolian Dance—during which performers use utensils to create rhythmic imitations of horses’ hooves galloping across an open prairie—and a Lion Dance, which centers around a familiar figure in Chinese celebrations.