What if your culture already had a place for queer love? What if the forbidden can be divine?

I am aiming to raise $2500 for this full evening length dance piece featuring the story of a Queer Chinese God.

This November, I’m bringing Rabbit God: A Queer Chinese Fantasy to the stage at the New Works Festival hosted by Culture Lab LIC in Queens.

At the center of the work is Tu’er Shen, the Rabbit God, a queer deity from Chinese folklore associated with love between men.

As a queer Chinese artist from Fujian, discovering this story was deeply personal. I grew up without many stories that reflected queer love within my own cultural heritage. To discover a queer figure already living within Chinese folklore made me wonder what else had been forgotten, hidden, or erased. Rabbit God grew from that question.

Through contemporary dance, martial arts, live vocals, music, and projection, the work enters a fantastical world of desire, repression, punishment, the underworld, and redemption. It asks what happens when a love that has been condemned is instead recognized as sacred.

Why I’m asking for your support

Producing an evening-length performance independently in New York City is a huge undertaking.

Behind the performance are dancers rehearsing for months, vocalists and composers creating the sound world, designers building costumes and props, projection artists creating an evolving visual landscape, and a production team making it all possible.

Your support helps me pay the artists who are bringing this story to life and cover the many costs of creating an independent performance—from rehearsal and design to production and presentation.

Learn more about the performers and collaborators

Every contribution, regardless of size, helps.

Your support can help:

$25

Help cover rehearsal and production materials.

$50

Support the labor of the artists who are creating this work.

$100

Help bring the visual world of Rabbit God to life through costumes, props, and projection.

$250

Help support the production costs of an independent NYC performance.

$500+

Make a significant contribution toward supporting the artists and bringing the full production to the stage.

These are examples of what different levels of support can help make possible; all donations go toward the overall production budget.

Why this story matters to me

I’m making Rabbit God because I want to create the kind of story I needed when I was younger.

As an immigrant and queer artist, I have spent much of my life navigating the space between cultures, identities, and ideas of belonging. This work allows me to return to Chinese folklore—not to recreate the past exactly as it was, but to imagine what it could mean for us now.

I’m interested in the spaces between history and fantasy, repression and desire, punishment and redemption.

Most of all, I want to imagine a world where queer love does not have to ask for permission to exist.

Come see Rabbit God

If you're in New York, you can also support the project by coming to a performance.

November 19–22, 2026

Culture Lab LIC — Queens, NYC

Four performances only

With only 62 seats per performance, this will be an intimate experience.

[GET TICKETS]

Be part of bringing this story to the stage

Whether you donate $25, $100, $500, buy a ticket, share this campaign, or simply tell someone about Rabbit God, you are helping make space for a queer Chinese story to be seen, heard, and imagined on a New York stage.

Thank you for believing in independent artists and for helping me bring the Rabbit God into the world.

With gratitude,

Jiemin Yang

Choreographer · Dance Artist

New York City