CPAA, or the Chinese Performing Arts of America, is a non-profit organization founded in 1991 in California, US, and it has been devoted to introducing Chinese culture through performing arts.

In the beginning of 2020, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 shut down the Bay Area, San Francisco. “The Chinese Spring Festival Gala was just over then and we were preparing for the 30th anniversary of CPAA,” said Han Feng, CPAA’s director. “But we had to suspended all activities due to the epidemic.”

While people have realized how vulnerable human beings are during the epidemic, it is the spirit of art that always inspires them to move on.

Hechunzi Wang pursued her postgraduate study in Stanford University after she got her bachelor’s degree in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She joined an education startup as a project manager in Silicon Valley after graduation. During the summer holiday of 2019, she became a member of CPAA. She had planned her first trip back to China for the 2020 Spring Festival since 2017, but didn’t make it due to COVID-19. Staying in the US alone, her biggest concern was not the living conditions, but her family’s constant worry about her. “I didn’t expect that so many family members are worried for me, which made me feel more anxious. How I wished I could comfort them.”

Tracy Jiang is a volunteer of CPAA. She has been working at home since the outbreak. As the situation worsened, food purchasing became an important task in daily life. So she and her family bought a big freezer to store enough meat and frozen food so that they did not need go out frequently to secure safe in this special period.

Michelle Shao, a dancer at CPAA, said that she spent 24 hours together with her family every day during the epidemic. The shortening of social distance caused many conflicts between family members inevitably. Her most enjoyable time each day was the moment when she immersed herself in dancing. She even moved the sofa and carpet away in her sitting room to make enough space for dancing comfortably.

CPAA encouraged all the teachers and organizations to provide online classes during the epidemic period. This advice was not fully supported at the very beginning, because the teachers knew that dancing should be taught by deeds instead of words. Obviously online teaching could not fulfill this request. With more and more practice, the teachers overcame the problems in online classes and got with it gradually. Many funny “incidents” occurred during the online training, for example a cat or a dog broke into the picture suddenly, or because of unstable internet, teachers were frozen in the picture with a funny gesture.

The students were the most affected by the COVID-19. Amy was a middle school student. She had been used to studying in school to talk and play with all her classmates face to face. All of a sudden, everything changed. She had to stay at home all day and took many online classes. She met some challenges for her dancing class, which needed more space to practice. So she set up a big screen in the living room to make the most out of the class. Amy was so excellent that she had kept daily practice and even joined a dancing competition during the period. Her success in the competition has undoubtedly inspired others also to pursue their goals proactively even in these difficult times.

Hechunzi Wang, who is also a member of CPAA’s dancing troupe, said although her room was not big enough for dancing, she took efforts to make use of any space to practice, such as stretching or other small-scale movements. When she found out that she could perform many dancing-related activities even staying at home, she felt relaxed. She had always missed the days when she could dance in the studio every day, and she believed it would not be long for this day to come back again.

Currently, with all industries recovering gradually, CPAA also tried to start their daily classes. “It’s like the first day of school,” Cheryl Talor, an instructor at CPAA, breathed a sigh of relief. “We met everyone and it’s just like a family reunion. The only regret is that we cannot embrace each other as before.”

In preparation for the reopening of CPAA, the staff members have held several meetings to discuss how to make students and teachers feel safe and comfortable, and more importantly, to abide by the rules of the city and CDC. To this end, a series of safety rules have been formulated. In addition, the staff members also require teachers and students to carry out personal disinfection before and after class to ensure a safe and healthy environment.

For CPAA, the celebration party for its 30 years’ anniversary will be focused on introducing the Tang dynasty (618-907). All the members have been highly enthusiastic during the rehearsal. “In the past 30 years, we have never stopped our performance except for the epidemic period this year,” according to Han Feng, its director. “Now we could get together again and embark on a new journey. All these difficulties we met have made us unite together more closely to empower each other. And our persistence also transmitted the spirit of art to our community and even all the people who love art.”