For Xia, presenting the showcase at the Lincoln Center carries symbolic weight.
"We want audiences to see that Chinese street dance is youthful, vibrant and creative. It is rooted in Chinese culture and Eastern aesthetics and is capable of engaging in equal dialogue with other cultures," he notes.
That confidence did not emerge overnight.
When 38-year-old dancer Chen Jie — better known in the dance battle scene as A K — first discovered street dance, China barely had a community for it.
His performance at the Lincoln Center will expand on an earlier television work into a new work, a reimagining of Sun Wukong, or the Monkey King, combining hip-hop and breaking with projections, shadow imagery and music built around traditional Chinese musical instruments such as the pipa (a four-stringed lute), suona (a double-reed woodwind instrument) and guzheng (Chinese zither).
"American audiences have Marvel superheroes," he says. "China has its own hero — Sun Wukong."
The legendary Monkey King from the classic novel Journey to the West overcomes repeated setbacks through determination, a quality that resonates with Chen.
"My own story is very similar," he says. "I've encountered many obstacles, but I've kept moving toward my goal."
As a primary school student, he saw what a television program simply described as "popular dance". Soon after, he learned from his classmates who practiced something called street dance.
"I went to watch," recalls Chen, who was born and raised in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province. "I thought it looked incredibly cool. I fell in love immediately."
Learning was far more difficult than it is today. There were no online tutorials or social media clips to imitate. His older brother introduced him to Michael Jackson performances on DVDs, and Chen replayed them endlessly, studying the iconic moonwalk and every movement and musical accent.
His family struggled to understand his obsession.
"They didn't know what I was doing," Chen says. "Only after I won a competition in Guangzhou (Guangdong) did they stop criticizing."
Years of persistence followed before the trophies arrived. He trained first as a breaker before discovering hip-hop, whose groove, rhythm and musicality felt more natural.
