Although they share a small office space in the basement of Sullivant Hall, Ming-Lung Yang and Abigail Yager said their office “is huge” compared to the one they shared in Taiwan.

“We’re used to tight quarters,” Yager said. New to the department of dance at Ohio State, married couple Yager and Yang are eager to teach, choreograph and share their experiences.

Susan Van Pelt Petry, departmental interim chair, said the couple is scheduled to stay through all of next year. After former Professor Rosalind Pierson died, the faculty that spring decided to advertise a visiting assistant professor two-year position in order to bring in a steady flow of new ideas to the department.

After Yager and Yang became a possibility, former chair of the department Scott Marsh set up the needed position so that two people could split the work of one, “giving the department much more flexibility and ability to work with two people, not just one,” Petry said.

The story that brought these two together begins in Taiwan. At 21, Yang started dancing when he was in the army. Back then, men were assigned to two years in the army and Yang was assigned as a tank driver. After accidentally blowing a tank engine and expecting a jail sentence of four weeks, Yang found himself a way out by auditioning for the army’s performing group. “After almost two or three auditions it went from 60 people to two and I stayed,” Yang said. “I always say jail…dance…jail…dance,” he said as he explained weighing his options.

In the group, Yang performed mostly jazz dance and Chinese folk, like “Bob Hope,” Yang said. Soon after, Yang attended the Chinese Culture University in Taipei, Taiwan where he received his Bachelor of Arts.

“I mostly just followed people in class,” Yang said in reference to the ballet and modern dance he was exposed to at the Chinese Culture University. After training intensely, Yang attended the American College Dance Festival (ACDF), in 1998 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

There, he was offered a scholarship, attended and earned his Master of Fine Arts. “It was easier for me to get in because I am a man…but I think I did quite well,” Yang said of his experience.

Growing up in Boston with “wonderful people to study with including Marus Schulkind, Micki Taylor-Pinney, and Ann Brown Allen,” Yager’s road to dance was less dramatic than Yang’s.

“I have a smattering of different things…mostly modern and ballet,” Yager said of her dance training.

Yager received her Bachelor of Arts in compositional studies and theory and practice at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and her Master of Fine Arts in dance at Hollins University in Virginia and through American Dance Festival (ADF).

During her collegiate years, Yager made sure to attend many dance intensives including ACDF, Graham intensives and Bates Dance Festival.

Fate stepped in as the Trisha Brown Dance Company brought the two together. Just as Yager was ready to make the move to New York in 1992, Yang was already apprenticing with Brown. Yager soon joined the company and the two danced together for Brown for four years.

The couple then moved to Taiwan in 2003 to teach at Taipei National University of the Arts. They married that year. They say they are bringing their deep experience with Brown’s company to OSU.

“Based on our experiences, we feel that to train a dancer is not only external movement … it’s to learn to have a smart body, a pair of sharp eyes and a flexible mindset,” Yang said.

“The dancing of Trisha’s company and process becomes a technical training. No matter what we’ve studied before, we come out with a common sense of attention to detail and mechanical specificity.

Having lived in that work for so long, it was especially formative for each of us as dancers,” Yager said. It was after joining the Trisha Brown Dance Company that Yager began to delve into somatic or bodywork techniques such as Klein Technique, Yoga, Alexander Technique and Qigong.

After sharing with the students last quarter, they say they have seen the difference. Yang said he could see the students had changed when they came back from winter break. “The quarter seems shorter. … It was like I saw the beginnings of change at the end of last quarter,” Yager said.

One of Yager’s students, Sydnie Liggett, a junior in dance, can appreciate these changes firsthand. “She has a different way of moving and I’ve learned to appreciate it and allowed it to enhance my dancing. … There has been a tremendous change in my dancing,” Liggett said.

The change goes hand in hand during rehearsals for their pieces to be showcased at OSU shows this year. Currently, Yager is resetting Trisha Brown’s 1983 work, “Set and Reset,” which will be performed in OSU Dance Downtown at Capitol Theatre at the Vern Riffe Center. “The piece is very specific … each finger has a location … each head has to be a certain way,” Liggett said. Despite the “specific and precise movement, she’s very good at finding the best way to communicate the same idea to different people,” said Danny Goode.

Yang’s work in the Vernon Reid project, a 45-minute piece including choreography of other faculty, will be shown in the same show.

“He makes me pay attention even when I’m tired from technique class and the day before,” said Jeff Marras, a sophomore in dance. “He is not only a great teacher of movement, but goes even further to explain how he wants you to feel while you’re moving,” Marras said.

So how do Yager and Yang feel here at OSU so far? “It’s been great,” Yager said as she answered for them both. “The strength of OSU is that it’s this large department with a breadth of offerings. Often breadth comes at the expense of depth… but the department has both,” Yager said.

Erika Gee can be reached at [email protected]