Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company Collaborators
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Joan La Barbara's career as a composer/performer/sound
artist explores the human voice as a multifaceted instrument,
expanding traditional boundaries in compositions for multiple
voices, chamber ensemble, music theater, orchestra and interactive
technology, using a unique vocabulary of experimental and extended
vocal techniques-multiphonics, circular singing, ululation and
glottal clicks-that have become her "signature sounds". Among her
awards are the prestigious DAAD Artist-in-Residency in Berlin, 7
NEA grants and numerous commissions including Saint Louis
Symphony, Meet The Composer and European radio. She has produced
11 recordings of her own works, including her latest, "ShamanSong"
(New World), served as producer and performer on
internationally-acclaimed recordings of music by John Cage and
Morton Feldman and has premiered landmark compositions, including
Morton Subotnick's chamber opera "Jacob's Room"; the title role in
Robert Ashley's opera "Now Eleanor's Idea"; Philip Glass and
Robert Wilson's "Einstein on the Beach" at Festival d'Avignon;
Morton Feldman's "Three Voices"; and Steve Reich's "Drumming".
La Barbara is currently working on a new collaboration with
choreographer Nai-Ni Chen and poet Bei Dao, "Dragons on the Wall"
which will feature the dancers’ voices as part of the soundscore.
La Barbara teaches contemporary voice and composition technique at
The College of Santa Fe and produces a weekly radio program on
contemporary classical music, "Other Voices, Other Sounds". Her
soundwork "73 Poems", with text by Kenneth Goldsmith, was included
in The American Century Part II at The Whitney Museum of American
Art. |
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Bei Dao
Poet/Writer, whose many books of poetry, essays, and
fiction have been published in China, the United States, and
Taiwan in Chinese and in English, has also had his work translated
into 25 other languages. Bei Dao is China’s leading artistic voice
of freedom. Well known as a pioneer in the art of contemporary
poetry during the Democracy Wall Movement in China, he has since
developed an international reputation that extends far beyond his
political activism, and he has won numerous international literary
awards.
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Composer Jason Kao Hwang recently scored Sue Williams,
China in the Red, a two-hour Frontline special for WGBH/PBS, and
as violinist, performed with Vladamir Tarasov in the Republic of
Georgia. He is currently scoring Searching for Asian America, a
three-part series produced by NAATA and KVIE in Sacramento. His
opera, The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown, premiered in the
fall of 2001, at the Asia Society in New York City. It was
commissioned by Asia Society, the Museum of Chinese in the
Americas and Music From China with the support a three year grant
from Meet the Composer/ New Residencies(1998-2000), and the Mary
Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. New World Records will release the
recording of The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown in 2004.
Mr.
Hwang's commissioned works include Immigrant of the Womb, an
oratorio that premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in February 1996
and Peach Flower Landscape, an a cappella work for mixed choir for
the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company. His compositions for film include
two feature documentaries for PBS, Sue Williams' China: Born Under
the Red Flag and Judith Vecchione's Tug of War, The Story of
Taiwan, and source music for Martin Scorcese's Kundun. Mr. Hwang's
composition Flight of Whispers was released on eXchange: China, a
compilation CD of Chinese American composers. He has two other
well-received recordings, Unfolding Stone (Sound Aspects) and
Commitment (Flying Panda). As violinist, he has performed on
recordings including Anthony Braxton's 1996 Sextet (Istanbul) and
1995 Octet (NYC), Dominic Duval's The Navigator (Leo); Henry
Threadgill's Come Save the Day (Columbia) and Too Much Sugar for a
Dime (Axiom), Reggie Workman's Altered States (Leo) and Butch
Morris's Dust to Dust and Testament:, A Conduction Collection (New
World). Over the years, he has performed with numerous artists
including Vladamir Tarasov, Diedre Murray, Borah Bergman, William
Parker, Fred Hopkins, Sirone, Michelle Kinney, David Murray, Billy
Bang, Frank Lowe, Sunny Murray and Dr. Makanda Ken MacIntyre.
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A.C.
Hickox
Lighting Designer/Production Manager has designed
the lighting for Nai-Ni Chen's New York seasons and national tours
since 1991. Ms. Hickox has designed for such diverse companies as
NeoLabos Dance Theatre, David Dorfman Dance, Richmond Ballet, Anna
Sokolow, Molissa Fenley, Ann Moradian, Joel Czarlinsky, Circuit
Production's Dancing Stars of Vaudeville, the 1991 Stars of the
Soviet Ballet, and Foot & Fiddle, as well as several dance
festivals in New York City. Her work has been seen Off-Broadway
and at many regional theatres and opera companies all over the
United States. She is a Senior Associate with DGA, a lighting
design firm in New York, serves on the faculty of Columbia
University’s Dance / Dance Education Department, and is a member
of United Scenic Artists Local 829.
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Susan Summers
Associate Lighting Designer / Stage Manager has been
lighting dance and theatre performances for over thirty years.
Previously, she taught lighting design and production management
at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University
of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her professional credits cover a
wide range of prominent dance companies including the Saitama
International Dance Festival in Tokyo; the Russian Ballet Theatre
of Delaware; as well as 12 seasons for the Virginia School of the
Arts Dance Division. Theatrically, she served as Lighting
Designer for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s
Summerfest in 1993, 1995, 2002 and 2003. She also serves as a
consultant on new and renovated theatre installations. She has
toured with the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company for over seven years.
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Karen Young
has designed costumes for many of Nai-Ni Chen's works since 1995.
Other dance credits include: Andrea Haenggi/AMDaT, Noemie
Lafrance's Agora, Elisa Monte Dance, Dusan Tynek Dance
Theatre, Philadanco, and Ice Theater of New York. She has had a
longstanding association with the Martha Graham Dance Company,
where she recently created costumes for Deaths and Entrances
with Oscar de la Renta and Martha Clarke's Suenos with
Donna Zakowska, worked with Robert Wilson and Susan Stroman, and
directed the reconstruction of costumes for numerous Graham works.
Theater credits include: The Trojan Women with Allegra
Kent and Maria Tucci at the Princeton Atelier, El Retablo
Embrujado in Mexico City, and Theatre de la Jeune Lune's
Pelleas et Melisande. Costume design for video art includes:
Matthew Barney's Cremaster 5 and Cremaster 1, Toni
Dove's interactive feature film Spectropia, and Eve Sussman
& the Rufus Corporation’s 89 Seconds at Alcazar (on view
recently at MoMA) and upcoming the Rape of the Sabine Women.
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Judith Daitsman Lighting
and Production Coordinator has shed light on many theatre,
dance, and performance art productions in New York and around the
world. She designed the lighting for a new production by Tango X2
at City Center in New York. Her work has also included a great
number of new and original scripts in many of the alternative
theatre spaces in Manhattan. Her experience includes work as a
Lighting Supervisor for the international tours of The Martha
Graham Dance Company and the Philip Glass opera “Les Enfants
Terribles,” as well as work at the Spoleto Festival USA and
Glimmerglass Opera. She has worked as a Lighting Supervisor for
The National Theatre of Greece; the Ballet Nacional de Cuba; the
ballet company of the People's Liberation Army of China and Tango
X2 during their tours of the United States.
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Daniel
Meeker
works as both a scenic and lighting designer. Recent Projects
include: scenery for The World
Goes Round at the Cape Playhouse,
The Blue Room and
Jack And The Beanstalk
at The Hangar Theatre, The
Consul and Owl
Creek: The Musical at Ithaca College; lighting for the
world premiere of Approaching
Moomtag at New Repertory Theatre, the New York premiere
of The Leper’s of Baile Baiste
at the Phil Bosakowski theatre, the New York premiere
of The Soup Comes Last
at 59E59, and The Magic of
Christmas 2004 with the Portland Symphony Orchestra;
scenery and lighting for The
Drawer Boy, Pecan Tan &
The Soup Comes Last at The Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca,
NY. Upcoming projects include: Scenery for
I am My Own Wife at
the Hangar Theatre. In addition to theatrical work Dan designs for
Barbara Israel Garden Antiques and designs custom residential
light fixtures. Dan is a graduate of Ithaca College and The Yale
School of Drama.
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Daniel Marcus
Lighting Supervisor/Stage
Manager
Mr. Marcus's theater credits include Jekyll and Hyde
and Little Shop of Horrors at Seattle's William Allen
Theater; Kiss Me, Kate!, Man of La Mancha, Nunsense II,
and Jekyll and Hyde at Pennsylvania's Bucks
County Playhouse; and, for the Cipriani Concert Series in New
York City, performances by Lionel Richie, Diana Krall, and
Kanye West. His work in television includes CNBC - Mad
Money, The Big Idea, and McEnroe, and his film credits
include Gravedigger, with Willie Nelson. |
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