By: Nia Bowers
When Spanish flamenco icon María Pagés performed her reinterpretation of Carmen in Beijing in 2016, she wanted her show Yo Carmen to speak to Chinese audiences in a deeper way. Yuhan Zhang was there to help build that bridge.
At the time, Zhang was Program Manager at China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), overseeing international productions and facilitating meaningful cultural exchange. For Yo Carmen, her team worked closely with Pagés to identify a classical Chinese text that could be seamlessly woven into the show that integrates works by women writers around the world. They landed on a poem by Song-dynasty poet Li Qingzhao—A Sprig of Plum Blossom. “Pagés connected deeply with Li’s refined lyricism,” Zhang recalls. “Her choreography became an embodied homage, and the audience felt it.”
This story is emblematic of Zhang’s career: fusing strategic structure with emotional nuance, and helping artists and institutions align their vision with local contexts. A dual-degree graduate of Yale’s School of Management (MBA) and School of Drama (MFA in Theater Management), Zhang has worked at the intersection of nonprofit consulting, cross-cultural storytelling, and community-driven art for a decade.
Currently a Consultant at Technical Development Corporation (TDC), a Boston-based firm specializing in nonprofit strategy, Zhang advises arts organizations and foundations across the U.S. She has helped clients—from lean community theaters to multimillion-dollar institutions—navigate strategic planning, launch new venues, and distribute grant funding with impact. In one standout project, she partnered with a foundation to restructure a $1.4 million annual grant cycle. Dividing grantees into two tracks—one receiving general operating support, and the other, change capital—Zhang helped ensure both stability and experimentation were funded. “Art thrives when it has room to take risks, but it also needs infrastructure,” she says.
Zhang’s ability to blend systems thinking with artistic empathy is rooted in her early career. At NCPA, she managed over 190 performances involving 46 domestic and international groups over three years. Later, at the 2019 Avignon Theatre Festival in France, she introduced Kunqu opera to European audiences in inventive ways. When the traditional excerpts failed to draw attention in the festival’s high-energy atmosphere, Zhang guided artists to demonstrate their elaborate makeup and costumes in a live, participatory setting, which not only appealed to the audience but also gave the artists a renewed sense of agency over this refined and subtle art form. She served as a cultural interpreter—translating not just language, but values and aesthetic philosophies. “It wasn’t about ‘selling’ tradition,” she explains. “It was about inviting curiosity through authentic process.”
In the U.S., Zhang continued to cultivate this approach. At Yale, she served as Associate Managing Director of the Yale Cabaret, a student-led dinner theater. There, each production became a community collaboration: the chef co-designed menus based on the production’s cultural background, seating layouts were customized, and audience members were immersed in full-sensory storytelling. “It was a living lab for how creative infrastructure enables artistic risk,” she says.
Beyond arts-specific roles, Zhang’s resume includes strategy consulting for a climate-focused startup (OnePointFive), youth and member company engagement research at WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development), and cross-sector partnership building at the Yale Schwarzman Center. She also has other experiences that focus more on one-on-one human connection, including supporting dance artist Yin Mei with fundraising and mentoring junior team members at TDC. In all her work, she brings the same intentionality: listen deeply, build trust, and honor creative authenticity.
Her global experiences have deeply shaped her ethos. “In China, I learned how to root global stories in local meaning. In France, how to adapt tradition to contemporary curiosity. And in the U.S., how to let community voices shape the narrative from the ground up.” Across these geographies, she’s developed a flexible communication style—one that balances stakeholder priorities with emotional resonance.
Now based in Boston and a Board member of the Boston Ballet Volunteer Association, Zhang continues her mission of empowering nonprofit organizations and artists to tell bold stories, grounded in both heart and infrastructure. Whether she’s aligning vision with resources or crafting narratives that move people to action, her work sits at the intersection of strategy and storytelling. At the core of her approach is always the same commitment: to honor the work of nonprofit and cultural leaders by making it seen, valued, and enduring.
