Imagine a world without dance?

It's so difficult because it's like it has been and is so much of my life while I'm dancing.

Nothing else in the world matters, and it really, like, can shift my mood because it kind of transports me into really, like another world.

Hi, I'm Alex Wong and this is How Art Changed Me.

I would always kind of dance when I was younger, and I would bring my family into a room and, like, give my dad a flashlight and say, spotlight me.

And then I would dance something.

I don't know what it was.

It was probably horrible.

But they would always say, like, do you want to dance?

And I was like, no, dancing is only for girls.

I kept on denying and like, not dancing until they eventually brought me to, like a local dance school.

And they're like, if you don't want to dance after that, we won't ask anymore.

But like, just watch it and so that was like another big exposure thing to me.

I saw other guys dancing in that little performance, and I think that really changed.

Like my, my whole outlook of when you're first generation and you're like, parents have maybe struggled to come here or whatever, like the first thing on their mind is making sure that you have like a solid future, like a roof over your head, like you're able to feed yourself.

And, my parents really allowed us to be able to dream and kind of pursue our passions, which I think was really rare at the time and actually still really is now.

They kind of just said, like the first most important thing is that, like, you're happy and you're pursuing happiness and like whatever you do pursue, like give it your best.

I think at some point for every dancer, like you're dancing, you're dancing, dancing, and then you're wondering like, well, is this real?

Like, can this actually be a profession?

And like, can I actually make it?

And so at the time, I really didn't see that many Asians on TV.

I didn't really see that kind of exposure.

And I was like, this is really unrealistic for me to pursue.

I didn't think there was like, Asians on Broadway.

I'm like, what am I going to be like an Asian in my side story?

Like, what is this?

So I decided that I should probably pursue ballet, as a career.

I was in the constant dance world and ballet companies for about, I guess, 6 or 7 years before I sort of transitioned into what I call the commercial side of dance, which was what happened with So You Can Dance so that came around and I decided to kind of audition on a whim, and it reminded me of how much I missed doing those other forms of dance because, like, I grew up doing like, jazz and tap and all those things.

And then I kind of left it a little bit behind, like when I started my professional career and I really missed doing those things.

And so that's kind of what put me back into that commercial side of dance.

That was 2010, and I think the landscape has started to change, where I started to see more color on TV and more diversity on TV, and it felt like, okay, like maybe I could make this transition.

Like maybe there is more for me.

So the item I brought with me are actually a pair of shoes.

They're a little dusty because they've been under my bed, but they were, my shoes that I wore for my hip hop piece.

So You Can Dance.

This was a big turning point in my journey on the competition.

But also, like in my career.

And it was the most terrifying point as well.

A lot of people remembered me from this hip hop dance.

It was like, because I was a ballet dancer and I was like, very not experienced in doing hip hop.

And it was a dance that kind of surprised everyone and ended up winning an Emmy Award.

And ended up winning, like when they had a recap of like, you know, their ten, 15 years of like, best dances and saying that people voted for their favorite dance that ever happened.

And it also won that.

And so like really had a lot of significance in kind of like a turning point in my career was also so special because like a dancer, Twitch, who, now has passed away.

And so it's it's just really great memories.

It really changed my life because of like that was such a big turning point.

And I think a lot of people, like, recognized me for that.

I think that, like, the hardships that I've endured are things that I needed to endure.

I think they're part of what makes me today.

The hardest time in my career was when I got injured.

Like my really big injuries.

So, when I was on something dance, I snapped my Achilles tendon and that required surgery to sew it back together.

At the time, the surgeon was like, it's going to be like one year.

So think of it as like a one year recovery.

You can't do much in that one year.

There's going to be like physical therapy.

You're going to be slowly rehabbing and whatever.

That was really difficult.

And I one of the things like, I didn't have dance to help me cope, and I was pretty lost for the first few months.

I didn't know what to do.

And I actually just kind of pretended I wasn't a dancer.

I think that was, like, the easiest kind of escape for me was just to be like, okay, like, let's forget about dance for the moment.

Let's just pretend it doesn't exist.

In that time, I kind of started pursuing some other forms of.

It's like I got into acting classes.

I really like hone, unlike my singing skills and things that I also really enjoyed, that I knew would help my career.

Later on a year in three days after my recovery, I snapped my other Achilles.

And so it was like another kind of thing.

But the second time around, I approached it a little differently.

I remember one week out of surgery, I was already teaching dance at conventions to like thousands of kids and so like being able to like, share dance in that way, also helped me kind of like get back up on my feet in the sense of like, okay, this time, the second time around, I'm not going to let it stop me.

I'm going to like, go, and I'm going to share what I can do.

And funny enough, like the first time around when I had focused on my acting and my singing and stuff like that, I had done like, an Aladdin audition for the Broadway, Disney's Aladdin, which I got, but I was going to return as an all star, so I turned it down.

But that second time around, after that second injury, Disney on Broadway called and was like, hey, we would love to have you in the original Broadway cast of Newsies.

And so like that kind of set up of, like, me sort of pretending I wasn't a dancer and focusing on other sorts of things inevitably led to me having my Broadway debut, which was dancing, acting and singing.

Above all else.

I always just strive for happiness.

I allow my intuition to kind of like, lead me on which way to go am I still striving towards happiness?

Am I maintaining my happiness because like, inevitably like, that's like the most important thing to me, right?

Like, if I don't have my health, I don't have my happiness.

Like, what do I have?