Vy Nguyen
Vy Nguyen is a fourth-year Vietnamese-American first-generation student at the University of Minnesota on track to receive a BFA in Dance. They are graduating in early May.
“Higher education has never not been an option for me. It was always on the forefront of my mind, and part of that was knowing that I have the opportunity to be a first-gen student if I wanted to. I was really highly encouraged by my family… when they were around my age and starting university and college was when they immigrated here with me. So where I’m at in life, they spent that chunk of their life preparing and gearing up for mine, making the big move to the States so that I would have these opportunities.
Going into higher education for the arts was something that they weren’t really ready for, for sure… they came around eventually. I think it was when they realized that the American Dream of an immigrant family having their first child go to college doesn’t have to be so restricted. Likeme taking an opportunity to be an Asian American dancer is still taking an opportunity and still doing all the things that parents want for their first-gen child.
I started dancing when I was about four. It’s one of the first things that my parents put me in when we immigrated here. And I guess for me, growing up with English being my second language, dance was kind of a third language or just an alternative way for me to feel connected to others and to communicate with others. And I still feel that now, being a person that’s shy and not super communicative at times. Dance is really helpful to make me feel like I’m exuding external energy in some kind of way and being with others in some kind of way.
I just want to perform, perform, perform. Because, for me, that’s the biggest way that I feel that I can continue learning as a dancer. I love working with choreographers and hearing their ideas and where they come from because it inspires the work that I do. Performing and being that form of representation for other people is also a really nice feeling and knowing that I can do that when I perform. And then making work is also in the realm of possibilities. I really want to be able to choreograph and make work and utilize dance as more of an artistic medium and less of an entertainment, commercialized, commodified type of form.”
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Interview by Elijah Awada