Paris, France is an important hub for the development of the arts in Europe. Due to the city’s central location, many performance groups from all over the world come here to perform every year. Cite' Internationale des Arts is located in the center of downtown Paris. This central location within an arts center presents potential opportunities for exchange among different performance groups.

In addition, France is at the center of Western Europe geographically. It is near England, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holand, and many other countries that are important for the development of the arts in Europe. Therefore, the main goal for my residency at Cite' Internationale des Arts was to conduct research and arts exchange in these European countries, with Paris, France being the central base of operation.

The Council for Cultural Affairs offers funding assistance, as well as on-site support for its artist-in-residency programs abroad. The length of the residency, however, may be readjusted according to the artist’s needs . My residency was only six months. It took about one month for me to readjust and familiarize myself with the local ways of living. In addition, performance art requires a long span of time for planning and rehearsal. Furthermore, I also spent a lot of time visiting countries outside of France for shows and arts exchange. Take my residency period for example, 08/01/2009 to 01/15/2010: the French summer vacation, other countries’ dance group vacation, Christmas vacation, and New Year’s break took nearly two months of my residency. The actual time available for working and conducting international arts exchange was actually less than four months. Opportunities to visit, view rehearsals, and interview international performance groups were hard to come by. Therefore, I believe it would be really helpful for future Artists-in-Residence to be granted more time in the residency programs to conduct more in-depth research.