In fifth grade, Eddie Shiang’s (12) parents often saw their son mesmerized for hours on end by Michael Jackson music videos. Fascinated by Jackson’s iconic dance moves, impeccable sense of rhythm, and expert control over his body, Eddie immediately fanned his initial spark of love for dance into flame.

“I wanted to channel that energy and stage presence that I found in his dance videos, but since I grew up in the San Mateo area, I couldn’t find any youth male hip-hop dance groups near me,” Eddie said. “So, I started off doing traditional Chinese dance, which served to instill the spirit and energy into dance that I needed to start off my foundation.”

Once Eddie came to Harker in middle school, however, he jumped at the opportunity to start hip-hop dance.

“My Harker buddy was already taking these weekly dance classes, and he asked me if that was something I’d be willing to do, and of course I said yes,” Eddie said. “I took my first class with Mr. Kuehn and loved how I was immediately able to dance to the music that I listened to every day on the radio instead of Chinese music I hadn’t ever heard of before.”

In those classes, Eddie centered all of his energy on improving solely himself as a dancer, describing himself as “passionate, but in a selfish kind of way”. Yet once rehearsals for Harker’s annual dance show came around, he opened up towards the more social aspects of dance.

“Once routines and choreographs for the dance show started, I gradually realized my love for dance intersects with so many other people’s as well,” Eddie said. “I met so many people just in the rehearsal room and found inspiration in my peers regardless of their age level or experience. I saw people who were ten times more skilled, more energetic, and more driven than me, which increased my own dedication, and for those who didn’t have as much experience, I saw myself some years back in them and tried my best to encourage them to work harder.”

Additionally, Eddie choreographed the annual Spirit Dance for the class of 2017 from 9th to 11th grade. Despite being initially discouraged at the relative lack of attendance and enthusiasm from the class in both freshman and sophomore year, he found junior year to be a huge turnaround.

“The amount of people who showed up was overwhelming; maybe three times the amount we had in sophomore year,” Eddie said. “Rehearsal was so fun and lively as opposed to previous years, and everybody managed to strike a great balance between goofing off and having fun, and working really hard to memorize the routine and give it their all instead of robotically copying movements.”

In fact, the day of the junior spirit dance was pouring rain; while Eddie had his doubts about the dance going smoothly, the juniors placed first that year, much to his delight.

“I thought for sure, ‘This isn’t going to work’, with the horrible weather and the chilliness and everything,” Eddie said. “But everybody pulled their weight – more than that; in fact. I think that the cold weather actually pushed us to do harder and do better, and to say, ‘This isn’t going to bring us down; we’re going to work even harder because of this’. I was already so happy that we did our best even before results came out, so when I heard that we placed first, I was completely floored.”

Eddie hopes to continue hip-hop dancing all throughout college, citing it as one of the key reasons he was able to find his love for performing arts and stick to it.

“I’m sure everyone has their own passion that they cherish and hold close to their heart and want to keep on working at and improving, and that’s the purest form of passion there is,” Eddie said. “When you want to work hard at something yourself, you know you can always count on yourself to put your all into it.”