Alex Li

Arts Management

I’m an international student from China in the Business and Entrepreneurship program at Columbia. With a BA in Theatre Management, I produced musical theater that collaborated with European artists and toured nationwide in my country. I love iced coffee and I cook for fun. 

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT YOU WERE DOING BEFORE YOU CAME TO COLUMBIA.

Before I came here, I finished the first year of a graduate program at the Central Academy of Drama where I studied theatre and festival management. At the start of this year, I interned at TikTok’s international monetization department in Beijing. 

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE COLUMBIA FOR YOUR GRADUATE STUDY?

When I was a grad student in China, a professor from Columbia gave us a Zoom seminar to talk about marketing in the creative industry, which I was passionate about. At that seminar, we discussed the difference between the arts organizations in China, France, and the US. Throughout the seminar, I enjoyed the readings and discussions, which were all really different from the courses in my program. Most importantly, the professor said to us that it’s important to see how the rest of the world does marketing and runs theaters, and that inspired me to seek to study abroad. Of course, Columbia became my first choice. 

TELL US ABOUT A PROJECT YOU’RE WORKING ON THAT YOU’RE EXCITED ABOUT.  

 There is an academic project that I am working on about community theaters in Chicago and their role in community development. It’s interesting to explore and investigate how the community theaters as many community members’ very first theater experience have raised the social capital of the neighborhood and contributed to their skills, community spirit, and artistic sensibility. There are some valuable lessons that I can bring back to China.