WOW| A Brave Dancer

“It’s been trendy for a while to support HIV, but it never really became ‘brave’ in the same way as cancer, or breast cancer, or things like that,” says Yang Yang.

Yang Yang is a dancer who attended the performance of a private dance drama chronicling the lives of 4 gay men who are long-term survivors of HIV/AIDS. With the lifesaving medication, these gay men have now found themselves, as one puts it, “back from the dead,” struggling to cope with the inevitable aging process, their various health issues, the growing sense of isolation, even survivor’s guilt.

The selfie of Yang Yang

As one of the long-term survivors, Yang Yang, himself HIV-positive, seriously examined his own life and appreciated his own good fortune.

“Compared with others , I think they have lost so much more than I have,” he said. “A lot of them were literally on the death’s door, and then kind of picked up and rebuilt their whole lives. They lost their friends, they lost their jobs, they lost their homes. I haven’t ever been in that situation. So putting myself in someone’s shoesmade me so incredibly grateful for what I do have. And it also made me feel very privileged that they entrusted me to take their stories and share them with the world.”

Yang Yang admits he’s often shocked by the sheer ignorance surrounding HIV in mainstream society — even among members of the LGBT community, who still speak of HIV as if it were the height of the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s and early ’90s.

“I’ve been enveloped in a community here that is very HIV-aware, talks very openly about it, seems to be up on the knowledge, and it not oppressive or not attaching stigma to it,” Yang Yang said. “So you’re kind of living in the ghetto, where you think everything’s fine. And when you step out of that ghetto, you’re in shock that people still have these antiquated views about being HIV-positive.”

He believes the stigma surrounding the virus may stem from moral judgments. Society often casts those suffering from HIV/AIDS as dirty or as being punished for their actions, particularly at a time when sex is still often seen as shameful.

“I think there’s still this moral outrage and stigma associated with it that doesn’t go to any other diseases, besides ones that are sexually transmitted or that result from blood-to-blood contact, such as intravenous drug use,” Yang Yang added. “People think it’s a scandalous, dark thing that you did that caused you to become positive, so, therefore, you are a bad person. ‘How do you think you got it?’ And it’s irrelevant how he got it. But people still feel they have to ask that question.”

While Yang Yang and his friends strive for an objective tone in presenting his subject matter, he hopes the dance show will elicit reactions and provoke discussions. And the more powerful or emotional the reaction, the better — particularly if the viewer is willing to share their interpretation of the drama and its impact on them.

“This is why I make this. I want people to discuss them,” he says. “I don’t want to make a show where you turn off your brain for an hour-and-a-half.”

SHAMMY:Were you aware of your sexuality as a child?

YANG: Yes,definitely.It was one of those things of never having to question my sexuality.it was always like ”Oh, that’s what I am.” So even the earliest memories I can have was definitely identifying”queer,” as such, that feeling of difference. And then that solidified into being attracted to other men. But more than just a general feeling apart from being sexually attracted to men, it’sthe feeling that you think about things differently. And so I more associate with the “queer”label, I think, because of that.

SHAMMY:Is it a demographic you identify with because you are also HIV-positive? YangYang: Yes. I am HIV positive. I’ve been positive for about two years. But my experience was very different from a lot of men in this show. I received my diagnosis in 2013. The protease inhibitors had been out for a little while. So the tide had some how turned a little bit. And I also wasn’t in the thick of it. I was in a gay relationship, but I didn’t have a whole lot of gay friends, and certainly no one who had actually been directly affected by this. And I was very lucky that I have a good doctor who helped me a lot. For that I am actually kind of thankful, because I missed any of the meds that might have had harmful side effects at that time.

SHAMMY: Some people like revealing their serostatus to telling people they are LGBT-people with HIV\AIDS also have to “come out” Do you find there are parallels between those two experience?

YANG: I think in a lot of ways it is harder to come out as HIV-positive. Especially now, there is so much positive reinforcement about being gay and being proud and things like that. But still, as we have seen, especially in some media, HIV as if it is still a dirty thing that something you should be ashamed about, it is still dangerous. So I think it is much harder to come out as HIV-positive.

My own personal story isthata lot of my close friends knew, but I didn’t tell my parents until late last year. And one of the reasons I did not tell them was I did not want them to worry, I did not want them to freak out. Because I knew the early exposure they had to it was pretty much when AIDS was a deadly plague headline.

But then last month, I was thinking,” I am making this show, it is going to come out. I need to tell them before I can talk openly in the stage about it.” At first I was like, “they don’t need to know.” But then finally I thought, “No, they need to know everything.”

The positive response I received from my parents was actually very empowering. There was no judgment at all. They were just concerned for if I am happy and well. To my surprise, they were really understood why I had kept it a secret from them as well. That was another thing that I thought thing I thought they had be angry about. I did not face a bit of ignorance there, which is more pleasant. I’m not going to put a happy, rosy glow over this and end it with a platitude about “let us all hold hands and think positively and everything will be fine.” Because you have to look things dead-on and confront them for what they are.”

SHAMMY: How did you get the idea for this dance show

YANG: I do not remember the initial spark of the idea. I do remember I needed to make it. I call myself a dancer, and I had not made a performance in these years. I was preparing for my civil service examination, of course , my parents’ hope. I need to do something and make something, so I was looking around the environment, thinking, “what is in front of me? What can I pick up from?” One day, I watched a film, We Were Here, which is a particularly moving portrait of what had happened in San Francisco during the epidemic years. But it occurred to me that there was nothing really about what is happening to people who lived through this, what are their lives like, and I wanted to do something that was a little more philosophical and a meditation on aging, and purpose in life. People who have lost almost everything , how do they get up and get on with their lives? And it basically sprung from here, and it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

Shammy， I am a chinese girl who loves rock n roll