Qualitative case study demonstrates how institutional funding dictates creative innovation in Chinese contemporary dance, highlighting the precarious nature of independent arts production.
This article examines the selection criteria and production practices of the Young Artists Platform for Dance (YAPD, 青年舞蹈人才培育计划), a prominent funding and production initiative that has supported independent dance-making in mainland China since 2014. Drawing on Sarah Wilbur's (2021) methodological approach, which treats dance grant-making as an infrastructural force shaping artistic production, aesthetics, and institutional values, I analyze YAPD's curatorial role in shaping innovation within contemporary Chinese dance. Using the YAPD-commissioned work Yong I (2017) as a case study, I explore how the platform's funding criteria and programmatic structure tend to generate a self-reinforcing cycle that aligns innovation with modern and contemporary aesthetic paradigms. I suggest that YAPD's funding model contributes to the production of a distinctive creative grammar and economy of movement. Finally, I situate YAPD within China's broader dance funding infrastructure and examine the precarious position the platform occupies within the contemporary dance funding ecology.
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Yao Xu (2026) studied this question.
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