Photo above courtesy of Henry Liu.
here at new century dance we ensure that you have the best dance instructors possible.
Fenhua Lu - Founder & Principal
"Lu Lao Shi" is the principal and sole founder of New Century Dance. The values and teachings of the school are parallel with that of her dance education back in China. When she was nine, Fenhua was selected to join the prestigious Shanghai Dance School, where she would live and breathe the essence of dance for over a decade. From that point on she brought her skills overseas as a professional performer to Canada and then California, where she eventually settled and opened New Century Dance for business. Her goal with the school has been to introduce the beauty and grandeur of traditional Chinese dance and ballet to new generations of dancers in the West. Through her passionate and disciplined lead, NCD has become a true elite in the Bay Area dance community.
Jocelyn Lu - Assistant Principal
Jocelyn Lu is a dance instructor, choregrapher, and the competition team lead at New Century Dance. Studying with the J&H Dance School in Houston, Texas, she earned her Young Professional Artist Certification with Beijing Dance Academy at the age of 16. She has numerous regional and national awards in Chinese and modern dance, and is highly acclaimed for her exceptional artistry and style. While earning her undergraduate at MIT, she became a director and choreographer for various dance companies in the greater Boston area and held the role of principal dancer at the semi-professional troupe Dance Revelasian.
After moving to the SF Bay Area, Jocelyn joined New Century Dance in 2014, where she has been teaching and performing since. She is the lead instructor of New Century Dance's competition team, developing and leading students to numerous regional and national titles at American Dance Awards, Starbound, Spotlight, and WeShine.
She currently is the lead instructor of NCD’s competition team.
Jing Zhang - Lead Ballet Teacher
Jing Zhang began her ballet studies at the same prestigious Shanghai Dance School as Lu Lao Shi in 1993. In 2000, she progressed to the Specialty of Dance Department in the Opera and Dance College of the Shanghai Theater Academy. During her tenure at the Theater Academy, she participated in numerous competitions and garnered many awards: third place prize in the Ballet Junior Group "Peaches and Plums Cup" in 2000, first place prize in the Shanghai Music Festival in 2001, the Excellent Player award in the Shanghai International Competition in 2001, and many more. She joined Ballet San Jose in 2005, eventually making her way over to New Century Dance in 2011 where she has been teaching ever since.
Andrea Cheung - Dance Conditioning Teacher
Andrea is a versatile teacher of many disciplines; she is a musician, dancer, and engineer.
She was a software engineer at Apple and Adobe before following her parents’ footsteps to become a teacher. She currently is a school teacher within the Sunnyvale School District and is an independent violin and piano teacher as well. She has also been teaching dance conditioning and beginning ballet classes to students of all ages. Andrea discovered her passion for ballet as an adult after having been a long time distance runner and practitioner of Pilates. She appreciates the perfect synergy of musicality and graceful movements of ballet. She has studied with many outstanding ballet teachers in the Bay Area. Her most influential teachers include Linda Rickert, Ommi Pipit-Suksun, Rudy Candia, Rudolph Cassand, and Peter Hershey.
Andrea seeks to instill in her students a deep appreciation of the subject matter, as well as a life-long desire to grow in whatever disciplines they choose to pursue. Her ballet and movement classes emphasize a logical understanding of correct alignments, movements, and their inherent connection to the music. She encourages the students to move and dance with mindfulness in order to create meaningful expressions. Andrea is delighted to join New Century Dance’s team.
Erin McMahon - Ballet Teacher
Erin McMahon is originally from Houston, Texas where she trained under Caryn Stoll, Kathleen Waltz, Miroslav “Misha” Bart, and Milena Leben before attending City Ballet of Houston. From there she attended Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre where she performed in the school and with the company.
After graduating high school, Erin attended The University of Utah where she received her BFA in Ballet, BS in Economics and a minor in Modern Dance. She performed in many works both with the ballet and modern department as well as a guest artist with Salt Lake City Ballet.
After graduation, Erin danced with Central West Ballet where she danced soloist and principal roles such as Lucy in René Daveluy's Dracula, Winter Fairy from Cinderella, Prayer in Coppelia, and Mrs Madlock from The Secret Garden. From there, she moved to Virginia to dance with Roanoke Ballet Theatre where she performed roles such as Snow Queen from The Nutcracker, Spring Fairy from Sleeping Beauty, Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Evil Queen in Rolando Sarabia’s Snow White. She currently is a dancer with San Jose Dance Theatre. Erin has worked with renowned teachers like Oleg Vinogradov, Ronn Guidi, Margo Marshall, Soili Arvola, Leo Ahonen, and Norbert Nirewicz.
Erin has taught at many studios including Ballet West summer intensive, Kingsport Ballet summer intensive, Central West Ballet Academy, San Jose Dance Theatre, and at Depelchin Children's Center where she taught underprivileged children ballet.
She is also a 200 Hour Yoga Certified Teacher, Level One Character Dance Instructor under Inna Strabrova, Rhythm Works! Integrative Dance Certified Teacher where she has taught Sensory Ballet to children on the Autism spectrum.
Asia Bui - Guest Ballet Teacher
Born in Tampa, FL, Asia Bui began her classical ballet training at America’s Ballet School under the direction of Paula Nunez. She continued her classical training at the Harid Conservatory (Boca Raton, FL) and in Houston, TX as a member of Houston Ballet II. She danced with the Houston Ballet from 2013-2015 and joined the Sarasota Ballet in 2015, where she is currently dancing. She has had the privilege of working with many renowned choreographers and repetiteurs from around the world. Her work includes featured roles in classical and contemporary repertoire, including Christopher Wheeldon’s There Where She Loved, The American, George Balanchine’s Jewels, Theme and Variations, Anthony Tudor’s The Leaves are Fading, Martha Graham’s Appalachian Spring, Paul Taylor’s Brandenburgs, Sir Frederick Ashton’s Les Patineurs, Sinfonietta, Sir Peter Wright’s Giselle, ‘Clara’ in Ben Stevenson’s The Nutcracker, and ‘Mary’ in William Tuckett’s The Secret Garden. During her time in the Bay Area Asia is looking forward to building a relationship with New Century Dance while working with the school’s talented students!
Jackie Yang - Guest Dance Conditioning Teacher
Jingkun (Jackie) Yang was an actress and a member of the Guizhou Provincial Rhythmic Gymnastics Team. She participated in many performance activities including TV appearances, film and theatrical productions, stage performances, as well as performance directing, and she received many accolades along the way, such as the 2017 Miss Chinese Cosmos Pageant American Region Second Runner-Up & Miss Chinese Cultural Elegant awards. After training with the gymnastics team, Jackie transitioned to the study of Yoga and Chinese folk dance including the ethnic dances of Dai, Han, Tibetan, Mongolian, Uygur and other ethnic minorities. Jackie is also an expert in other styles of dances such as Jazz, Hip- Hop, and modern dance. Jackie earned her Bachelor’s degree from Communication at the University of China (中国传媒大 学) and her Masters degree from Columbia College Chicago. Jackie is a professional in the applied knowledge of the performing arts including acting, directing and producing, and is professionally qualified to teach Chinese dance and Yoga. She obtained the title of Certified International Professional (CIP) Yoga Instructor in 2011. She joined NCD in 2019 and has been helping develop our wonderful students since.