A Local Dancer On Storytelling and Building Community Through Dance
Alex Ung on Cultural Representation and the Guild’s Plans for 2022
By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor
Photo by Karya Schanilec
Art has the power to move people in ways unimaginable. Through creating and performing dance works, choreographers and dancers have the power to express their emotions and connect to their cultural backgrounds and local communities. Alex Ung of the Guild Dance Company opens up about sharing his familial and cultural background through dance, bolstering community, and the Guild’s plans for 2022. Be sure to catch the Guild’s show “El Camino” and their performance at the Seattle International Dance Festival in June.
Alex was born and raised in Iowa, where he began dancing in high school in the show choir and competition scene. But Alex shares that his dance career didn’t start until college when he began working with the hip hop club at Iowa State University. “I think that’s where it really hit me that I really love to dance,” he shares.
When Alex moved to the Seattle area, he began teaching hip hop at a dance studio on Bainbridge Island, where he worked for over a decade. He eventually broadened his scope into jazz, contemporary jazz, and contemporary ballet styles, and also began directing the competition dance team. Alex has worked with other dance studios and companies in the Seattle area, including Jeroba Dance.
Alex says that dance has stuck with him largely because he has a tough time expressing his emotions and thoughts through words. “I feel like I can do it a bit better with my body [and] with my movement style,” he says of emoting. Having earned a degree in engineering, Alex also shares that he has an appreciation for the aesthetics of lines and shapes in dance and witnessing the physical challenges that the body can endure. He loves the feeling of doing something physical that he didn’t think he could do and surprising himself.
In 2018, Alex founded the Guild Dance Company after taking a break from teaching. He shares that he had missed creating dance and wanted to jump back into the choreographic world to tell his own stories in his own style, as well as learn from other dancers. “I thought building my own dance company would be a good way to do that,” Alex says, sharing that the Guild has become a place for dancers to build each other up.
“For me, the Guild is about the community and learning and experiencing each other,” Alex says. He loves being able to express himself and be vulnerable alongside the rest of the company dancers.
In 2019, the Guild Dance Company performed “Immigration Stories,” a show inspired by Alex’s family’s experience immigrating to the United States from Laos. Following high school, Alex and many of his relatives that were his age felt like their traditional culture was dying, as many of them were not making efforts to learn their family’s language or carry out traditional cultural activities. “It felt sad to me,” Alex shares. “I wanted to create a work that could help people understand where my family was coming from, where we came from in the past, and where we are right now.”
Alex shares that when people ask about his nationality, he often uses an umbrella term, like sharing that his family is from Laos, rather than diving deeper into his more specific tribal culture of the Tai Dam. “It was just easier,” Alex says. “Immigration Stories” provided Alex with an opportunity to share more about his culture, in an effort to “not let it disappear into history books” and simultaneously help write history. “We’re a small tribal culture that not a whole lot of people know about and so I wanted to bring that to light,” he says of the Tai Dam people.
Through interviewing his family and others, Alex realized how fortunate he is to be doing what he loves as a result of the sacrifices and risks his family made. He also learned that people from different cultures shared similar immigration experiences, which sparked inspiration. He found it so meaningful to find that people aren’t alone in their challenges and that community can be an invaluable form of support.
Amid the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, Alex reflected on the racism he and his family had experienced in Seattle and elsewhere and felt angry. “I wanted to express my frustration and my experience with what was going on,” he says. So Alex brought together a group of dancers of color to create a video surrounding the theme of “Stop the Hate, Stop the Injustice.” An important co-producer in the process was local artist Alicia Mullikin, a first-generation Mexican American dance artist, educator, and community organizer. Alex shares that the project was a way for community members from various cultural backgrounds to come together and express their feelings of frustration and hurt regarding the rising hate crimes and common struggles they experienced.
Photo by Stuart Murtland
In the dance community, Alex hopes to see more dancers supporting one another, specifically by attending one another’s shows. “We’re all in the same bubble,” Alex shares, pointing to how Seattle-based dancers all face similar challenges, particularly finding funding to create work.
Moving into the next year, the Guild is planning to put on “El Camino,” a music and dance production made in collaboration with the Tudor Choir inspired by the pilgrims that traveled on the iconic Camino de Santiago. Alex drew inspiration for the production after walking on the trail himself, and undergoing what he describes as a “life-changing experience.” He was enamored by the people he met and the towns he passed through, learning about the different intentions of people embarking on the journey. Stay tuned to the Guild Dance Company’s website for more information about show dates!
The Guild Dance Company also plans to perform in the 2022 Seattle International Dance Festival this June, tickets are available here.
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