Cindy Jang-Barlow

INFO

Name	Cindy Jang-Barlow 윤하 (she/her)
Also known as	Yunha 윤하, Jang Huddle
Born	1996
Country of Birth	South Korea
Place of Residence	Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Ethnicities	Korean
Artform	Dance
Decades Active	2010s, 2020s

ABOUT

Cindy Jang-Barlow 윤하 is a community dance facilitator, performer, choreographer, producer and event coordinator. With a particular focus on accessibility, she aims to create community spaces where all people can safely explore dance and movement and have the opportunity to perform.

Jang-Barlow was born in Seoul and moved to Tāmaki Makaurau when she was four years old. She spent much of her childhood dancing a range of styles, including freestyle, jazz, contemporary and occasionally Korean fan dance and K-pop covers. Because she grew up as the only Asian person in her studio, dance class felt isolating and she felt like a “bad dancer”. Through her Bachelor of Dance Studies, which she completed with honours at the University of Auckland in 2018, she learnt that her longheld passion was community dance.

In November 2016, Jang-Barlow received a summer research scholarship in community dance studies, during which time she researched how community arts facilitators use circus or street dance as a tool of community-led development. Following that, in January 2017, she assisted Dr Carlene Newall de Jesus in researching how dance for older adults is important for their wairua and socialisation.

Jang Huddle was established in 2017 as a collaborative contemporary dance collective to empower people of colour to explore themes of community, intergenerational dynamics and empowerment of the inner child through dance. While Jang-Barlow struggled to identify with her Korean heritage when she was younger, she now weaves it into her work. Jang Huddle’s debut performance at The Basement Theatre, Iron Eyes (2018), explores themes related to the impact of power and control, touching on Jang-Barlow’s North and South Korean heritage. She told the NZ Herald it was a way of taking ownership of her story and challenging mainstream narratives. The work, combining theatre and contemporary dance, was crowdfunded with $1000 and was Jang-Barlow’s first time putting together a production.

As Jang Huddle grew, I Don’t Wanna Dance Alone (2023) was performed by an all-Asian cast of 12 people from diverse dance backgrounds who joined to celebrate the joy of movement and connection, deconstructing ideas of perfectionism in the dance industry. The work combined contemporary dance with improvisational theatre, spoken word and music. The ethos of the work is that everyone can dance.

Between 2015 and 2021, Jang-Barlow facilitated dance workshops for children with disabilities through StarJam.