Board and Trustees
We are a nonprofit organization with a strong international presence. Our board members have established close relationships with arts organizations, universities, cultural institutions, and community partners across multiple countries, and include a diverse group of professionals such as artists, curators, and business leaders.
Miaotian Sun
Founder
Passionate about bridging cultural traditions with modern artistic expression, Miaotian leverages her extensive experience in the performing arts to nurture early-career talent and build sustainable artistic careers. With a rich background as a choreographer and dancer, she also founded the New York City Chinese Dance Company (NYCCDC), a sub group under QIAA and a platform that showcases Chinese dance and honors cultural heritage in a contemporary context.
With over 20 years of training in classical Chinese dance & folk dance and seven years’ experience of contemporary dance, she collaborated with choreographers from XieXin Dance Theatre, Suzanne Dellal Center, and cooperated with many New York City based choreographers. Through QIAA and NYCCDC, she has spearheaded initiatives to support emerging artists, promote cultural education, and foster cross-cultural exchange. Passionate about preserving traditional culture and inspiring the next generation of talent, as a devoted cultural communicator, Miaotian aiming to facilitate cultural exchange between East and West through dance. She was also featured in press including Woman Around Town, Women's Journal, and NewsBreak.
Valkyrie Yao
Board
Valkyrie Yao is a multidisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator working across movement, installation, and moving image. Steeped in ancestral philosophy, psychology, and posthuman inquiry, Yao's work dissects humanity, reimagines the body as a site of metaphor and cultivation, and proposes aesthetic languages that decenter anthropocentric worldviews.
Yao’s choreographic and directorial works have been presented at Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater, Gibney, Dixon Place, The Tank NYC, the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Her film Insert Coin to Play was an official selection of the Beijing International Film Festival and received the New Youth Feature Film Award, Best Dance Video Art Film at The Way Dance Video Art Exhibition, and the Special Jury / 2nd Grand Prize at Compagnie des Oeillets MATUVU Paris. Residencies include the MATCH Residency at the Los Angeles Dance Festival and the Choreographers’ Institute with McKoy Dance Project. Previous work has been presented at National Sawdust, Phoenix Art Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and the XV Florence Biennale.
Yao’s research recognitions include a nomination for NDEO’s Outstanding Dance Education Researcher Award, the China Scholarship Council National Scholarship, and an Interdisciplinary Arts Fellowship with Ballet Arizona. She is also a member of CID–UNESCO.
Artist Board
Working artists who advise from within the field. They bring lived practice into our decisions, help QIAA stay artist-centered and culturally grounded, and ensure our programs reflect real needs in the studio, on stage, and in communities.
Artistic Director｜Arts Professor
Fay Van Alstyne Simpson
Fay Van Alstyne Simpson is the Artistic Director of Impact Theatre, co-founded in 1990 as a collective of physical theater artists devising work with a social bite. Her latest physical theater pieces, Red-Winged Blackbird and Song for Sybil which she wrote and directed are in development. She adapted Raymond Carver’s short story, A Small Good Thing, into a piece called SCOTTY, co-produced with the Harold Clurman Theatre. She directed Speechless, by Frederick Johntz, which is a portrait of a white male teenage gunman. Lucid Body House hosts a monthly Performance Salon, giving voice to artists from all mediums of visual and performance art.
Adjunct Faculty, NYU | Dancer | Choreographer | Educator
Careitha Davis
A native of Brooklyn, NY, with ancestral roots from Trinidad and Tobago, Careitha is a multifaceted artist whose teaching philosophies and work reflect her deep connection to the power of dance traditions and rituals in the arts. As an artist, dance educator, and choreographer, she uses dance as a tool to decolonize the Eurocentric approach to dance.
Teacher | Dancer | Choreographer
Vivake (Vive) Khamsingsavath
Vive is a Laotian American dancer, teacher and choreographer from Brooklyn, New York. He has performed at notable venues including Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall, Broadway at Bryant Park, Battery Park, and Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. Vive has appeared on the Today Show, The View and Good Morning America. Vive served as choreographer for The US Open, Bravo TV, Bloomingdales, PUMAxMaybelline, NARS Cosmetics, TNT’s “I Am The Night”. Vive is director at Dance United, an arts organization which provides cultural dance workshops to underserved public school across NYC.
Documentary Filmmaker | Producer | Influencer
Zhiying Deng
Zhiying Deng is an independent documentary filmmaker working between China and New York. After earning her sociology master's degree from LSE, she founded 2020 Film Studio, focusing on social inequalities and marginalized groups. With filming experience across more than 20 countries, Zhiying excels at cross-cultural storytelling, with her work featured on platforms including NHK and Tencent Video. Her latest producing work, "Girl Of Wind," received nominations for "Best Short Documentary" at the 60th Golden Horse Film Festival and won "Best International Short Documentary" at Doc Edge Festival 2024.
Artist | Pianist | Improviser | Synthesist
Kengchakaj
Kengchakaj is a Thai diasporic artist, pianist, improviser, and synthesist based in Lenapehoking. Born in Bangkok, his work draws on Southeast Asian traditions, ancestral soundscapes, and political histories to create immersive performances. Using acoustic piano, analog synthesizers, multichannel audio, and live coding, he blends technology and cultural lineage into multisensory, experimental compositions. His practice also reflects a deep interest in collaborative and community-centered processes.
Director | Producer
Andrew Chapman
Andrew Chapman lives in New York City with his incredible husband and their adorably rage-filled chihuahua mix. Andrew is grateful to be welcomed as a Board Member for QIAA. Chapman is the creator, director and producer of the Mobile Dance Film Festival; the first and only film festival to screen Dance Film shot solely on mobile devices - smartphones, tablets, etc. Starting under the guidance of John-Mario Sevilla at the 92Y Harkness Dance Center, the MDFF is now an independently run festival through Chapman's Mobile Dance Film Association and is celebrating its 8th year, having screened over 100 Mobile Dance Films representing and supporting artists from over 60 countries across the globe.
Team Member
The people who carry QIAA’s work into action. We produce programs, build partnerships, support artists and audiences, and keep day to day operations moving with care, clarity, and accountability.
Digital Marketing | Interdisciplinary Interactive Artist
Lin Feng
Lin Feng is a visual artist and designer whose work spans interactive installations, AR/VR environments, and experimental animation. Her practice explores collective experience, memory, and embodied storytelling through technology-driven media. Trained in visual communication and digital arts, Lin integrates tools such as TouchDesigner, Raspberry Pi, and Unity to create responsive systems that invite participation through sound, motion, and AI.
Event Coordinator | Theatre Actor/Artist
Felicity He
Felicity He is an aspiring theatre actor and artist in training, currently receiving her BFA at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Despite her primary focus on live theatre, she is always discovering ways to expand her artistic abilities to a variety of other disciplines. Her creative work ranges from performing on stage and screen to shaping stories behind the scenes through scriptwriting, cinematography, editing, stage management, and production design.
Social Media Marketing | Multilingual Creative | Music & Culture Strategist
Tsz Yan (Yannie) Ho
Born in Hong Kong and raised in New York, Yannie is a creative, multicultural, and visionary marketing professional whose work bridges music, culture, and digital media. She is passionate about fostering global cultural exchange through performing arts, believing that creative collaboration across borders is one of the most powerful ways to connect people and share diverse perspectives.
Website Design and Operation | Multimedia Designer
Cheuk To (Jade) Law
Jade Law is a multidisciplinary designer and visual storyteller specializing in digital design, branding, and creative strategy. At QIAA, she oversees the organization’s website design and digital presence, crafting visually cohesive experiences that reflect QIAA’s mission of accessibility and artistic collaboration.
Graphic Designer | Dancer
Ruotong Lin (Linzy)
Ruotong Lin (Linzy) is a multidisciplinary designer and dancer from China, studying at Parsons School of Design. With a bilingual and multicultural background, her design practice is deeply rooted in the cultural soil she grew up in—often exploring Chinese folk traditions, women’s narratives, and cross-cultural dialogues. To her, design is not just problem-solving, but also a form of research, reflection, and resistance—a way to question how identity, gender, and memory are formed and transformed across time.
Data analysis and marketing operations | marketing analyst
Seri Liu
Seri Liu is a marketing analyst whose work bridges data analytics, storytelling, and digital communication. At QIAA, she focuses on understanding audience behaviors and engagement patterns through data-driven research, transforming insights into strategies that strengthen QIAA’s digital presence and outreach.