YY Dance Company
Mimi Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square
Cleveland, Ohio
April 25, 2026

By Steve Sucato

DanceCleveland’s 69th season came to a satisfying close Saturday night at Playhouse Square’s Mimi Ohio Theatre with the Northeast Ohio debut of YY Dance Company.

The spellbinding performance by the New York-based troupe, established in 2018 by Chinese American dancer-choreographer Yue Yin, was part of the company’s very first domestic tour, having previously thrilled audiences internationally.  

The company performed a mixed repertoire program of four non-narrative works choreographed by Yue, originally created for other dance organizations. Each work featured Yue’s signature FoCo Technique™, a unique contemporary dance movement technique rooted in Chinese classical dance and folk dance, melded with Yue’s diverse immigrant experience.

Further highlighting the YY Dance Company’s performance were two company dancers with ties to Cleveland. Eastlake-native Grace Whitworth, the company’s rehearsal director, and Robert Rubama, who formerly danced with GroundWorks DanceTheater in the late 2010s.  

Rubama, along with dancer Nat Wilson, opened the program performing “A Measurable Existence” (2022). Danced to music by Dutch musician Rutger Zuydervelt, the 16-minute duet explored “how we discover aspects of ourselves by discovering others.”

In it, Rubama and Wilson, barefoot and costumed in loose-fitting pants and long-sleeved shirts, performed on a dimly lit stage shrouded in fog. The pair immersed themselves and the audience in choreography steeped in Yue’s stylized FoCo movement. The dancers launched into a barrage of sweeping movements, their bodies bending and curving in and out of bent-knee positions that sometimes took them to the floor and back up again. That movement was paired with arms that undulated, circled, and flung outward as if trying to escape the gravity of the dancers’ bodies, only to be pulled back in. 

Rubama and Wilson’s interactions on stage were like a stylized tussle, their movements flowing in and out of close-quarters conflict. The effect was as if watching expertly crafted Chinese calligraphy drawn rapidly before your eyes. 

Toward the close of the work, an overhead lighting batten suddenly dropped on one side to point two lighting instruments at the dancers. Like the warmth of the sun, the light drew Wilson’s gaze up and away from Rubama, who eventually exited the stage, leaving Wilson intently staring into the light. 

Next, Yue performed the brief solo “Echo” she choreographed earlier this year. Barefoot, costumed in all black and positioned centerstage, Yue began the solo with what looked like a Tai Chi form on steroids. Dancing to music layered with nature sounds, drumming, and echoing voices, she twisted, turned, and shifted her body from side to side while mimicking the act of holding a cantaloupe-sized ball between her outstretched hands. 

Perhaps a reflection of her early training in Chinese folk and classical dance forms at China’s Shanghai Dance Academy, the mesmerizing solo was sharp, athletic, and controlled.

The first of the program’s ensemble works, “Sigra Sigra” (2024), then exploded onto the stage like a release of charged energy. Blending the movement aesthetics of the program’s first two works, the 15-minute piece for eight barefoot dancers, including Whitworth, costumed in loose-fitting, grayish shirts and baggy orange pants, was a relentless cardio workout, dense with tightly packed dance steps and phrases on a theme of preparing the body and mind for war.

Set to music by Indonesian duo Yennu Ariendra and J. Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi, a.k.a. Raja Kirik, and on a stage again shrouded in fog, Yue’s choreography blended militaristic marching and elements of martial arts kadas with hip hop-esque movement and unison dance phrases that had the dancers hopping with arms stretched to the sky. The overall effect was one reminiscent of the high-energy unison ensemble works of Brazil’s Grupo Corpo and Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company. 

That flow of tightly packed dance steps and unison phrases continued in the program’s final, fog-laden work, 2016’s “Through The Fracture of Light.” 

The 35-minute work, danced to an original score by Juliane Jones and Doug Beiden that included Tibetan throat singing and Mongolian melodies, wasn’t as relentlessly fast-paced as “Sigra Sigra.” An early example of the FoCo movement style, the work’s pace and movement patterns varied. 

Aggressively danced group sections alternated with softer-edged duets and trios. The performers swooped, spun, dropped to the floor, and rolled up again as their arm motions circled and reached above their heads. 

Dancing in socks part of the time and barefoot the other, “Through The Fracture of Light” appeared to be all about creating an atmosphere, from its moody, cinematic score to the dancers’ thoughtful interactions with one another. 

The work’s final section then built in speed and intensity in league with the soundtrack to reach a gratifying climax. The dancers, as one, then sank into deep meditative pliés as the audience rose to applaud them.