Jiang Keyu and her husband Romuald Abbe express themselves in the way they know best. Provided to China Daily

Nine years on, Jiang still remembers first seeing him.

"He was tall, wearing a blue tracksuit and a red hat. We prepared a piece of classical violin music and he danced to it in a hip hop way. I realized he was a dance genius."

But Abbe, who had been learning hip hop for about six years and who with his team Black Star had won many dance competitions, wondered what the two women could teach him given that they did not know hip hop.

Jiang and Abbe now consider that the experience opened their eyes to new possibilities.

"Our training is now really open, and I'm able to get in touch with more varied and complicated things, such as classical ballet," Abbe says.

Jiang says that one of the things that inspired her most was the openness of Africa's culture.

"Cameroon's culture is very open. People are very enthusiastic. They are very easygoing and can sing and dance as long as there is music. They're very free; it's their personality. That experience has been very important for me creatively."

Jiang says that when she was at college, teachers would encourage students to imitate the style of well-known dancers. But she did not want to convey that notion in her teaching in Africa.

"I used to think that if I was like my teacher that would be great, but then I realized you need to encourage students to find themselves and their own characteristics.

"So in my first class I encouraged students to do improvisational dance and to express themselves, which is very spontaneous."

Jiang's one-year contract in Cameroon stretched out to four years, and she and Abbe gradually became closer. In 2008, she returned to China after the project concluded and became a dance teacher. That year, Abbe opened a dance company and eventually decided to go France to pursue his career.

After Abbe visited China and proposed to her in 2012, they were married in Beijing. Jiang says that even now they find it difficult communicating using spoken language, which can often be a headache. But the love of dance holds them together.

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