Nestled among green trees, four brand new buildings stand tall, reaching towards a central point. In the shade of the trees, six historic protected buildings line up, and this is the Shanghai International Dance Center, completed in 2016 and open to the public. Covering an area of 39,100 square meters and with a total investment of 1.1 billion yuan, the Shanghai International Dance Center brings together the Shanghai Ballet, Shanghai Dance Theatre, Shanghai Dance School, Shanghai Theatre Academy's Dance Department, as well as a large theater and an experimental theater (two troupes, two schools, two theaters). It integrates performance showcase, education and training, creative creation, and academic research, becoming a world-class dance hub and the only open large-scale art center in China with dance performance, creation, and education as its distinctive features.

In the late 1950s, under the care of national leaders such as Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi, the former secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, Chen Pixian, selected this site for the Shanghai Dance School. In 1961, the dance school moved from its temporary campus on Shimeng Road to its current location on Hongqiao Road. The teachers of the first generation of the dance school, represented by Li Mulin and Hu Rongrong, combined Western classical ballet with Chinese traditional opera here, rehearsing famous dance dramas such as "The White-Haired Girl," pushing Shanghai's dance industry to its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, the phenomenon-level dance drama "Red Wave over Shanghai" was also created and incubated by the Shanghai Dance Theatre at the Dance Center.

As a leading domestic and world-class dance art base, top-level dance performances from around the world have successively appeared here, and various large-scale international and domestic dance competitions have been held here. The Shanghai International Dance Center has become a new cultural landmark in Shanghai. Since the 10th edition in 2016, the China "Lotus Award" dance drama evaluation, Shanghai International Ballet Competition, and a series of domestic and international dance events have been launched at the Dance Center. At the same time, international exchanges at the Shanghai International Dance Center have been deepening: renowned international artists such as Yuan Yuan Tan, former principal dancer of San Francisco Ballet; Derek Deane, former artistic director of the English National Ballet; and Cai Yilei, former principal of the Scottish Ballet, have all settled in the Dance Center. Master choreographers from around the world conduct a series of dance workshops at the Dance Center, using international perspectives and artistic resources to enhance the imagination and creativity of young dance artists and students nationwide.