COLLABORATORS

Gerald Chenoweth (b.1943) received his BM and MM degrees in composition from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his Ph.D. in composition and MFA in conducting from the University of Iowa. His works have been performed across the United States, Europe and Asia, and have been recorded on the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings, Access, and CRI labels. His MELANGE A TROIS (for string trio) was premiered at the 2002 Pan Music Festival in Seoul, South Korea, and his work for marimba and drums, SLIMPLICITY ITSELF, was premiered in Paris, France on Nov.1, 2002, by the noted percussionist, WU She-e. A CD of his music for voice and various chamber ensembles is currently in process and is scheduled for release next year. Mr. Chenoweth is a Professor of Composition at the Mason Gross School of the Arts of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where, since1975, he has been active as a composer, teacher, and conductor. He is a member of the Society of Composers, Inc., the American Composers Alliance, and Broadcast Music, Incorporated.

Carolyn Wong Lighting Designer/Lighting Supervisor is a freelance lighting designer based in NYC.   She has created designs for Roxane Butterfly, MayDance, Holly Handman, Philippa Kaye, and TU Dance.  Ms. Wong has toured with Susan Marshall & Company, Forces of Nature Dance Theater, Shen Wei Dance Arts, the Parsons Dance Company, and the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular.  She also assisted on the Broadway productions of Little Shop of Horrors, The Times They Are A-Changin’, and The Little Mermaid.  She is a native of San Francisco and a graduate of Oberlin College.

Wei Chen Guest Chinese Dance Choreographer is from China. She received professional training in Chinese Traditional Dance, Chinese Folk Dance and Ballet from 1987 to 1991 at Beijing National Institute of Dance where she received B.A. degree in dance. In the following ten years, Wei Chen taught dance and choreography at Guangdong Professional School of Dance, Sichuan Professional school of Dance, and Sichuan University. In Spring, 2001, Wei Chen, as a visiting artist, came to the United States to teach Chinese Traditional Dance at Colorado College and Bucknell University. She also taught two workshops in ACDF. Wei Chen entered Master Program at Shenandoah University in the Fall of 2001 to study Modern Dance and Jazz. She received M.A. degree in dance in 2004. Since then, Wei Chen has been an Associate Professor teaching dance at Chengdu University, China.     

Glen Velez, four-time Grammy Award–winning master drummer, composer, and educator, is considered one of the most influential percussionists of our time and has been responsible for a worldwide resurgence in the popularity of the frame drum.  His teaching and performances inspired the Remo Drum Co. in 1983 to develop a line of frame drums called the Glen Velez Signature Series. The Cooperman Drum Co. introduced a handmade Signature Series Glen Velez Tambourine and Frame Drum line in 1999.  Even twentieth-century composer John Cage acknowledged Velez's mastery when in 1989 he wrote a piece especially for him, entitled "Composed Improvisation for One-sided Drum with or without Jingles."  While Mr. Velez draws upon the great drumming traditions of the Middle East, South India, and the Mediterranean world (both ancient and modern), he plays in a style all his own.  Using a vast array of complex hand and finger techniques, he creates a symphony of sound and texture from just a single hand-held drum.  He is also an expert in Central Asian Overtone Singing (singing two tones at once).  Mr. Velez regularly performs with critically acclaimed vocalist/rhythm singer Lori Cotler.  His new recording, entitled “Rhythms of the Chakras Vol. 2,” featuring Ms. Cotler, was released on the Sounds True label in 2008.

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.

Bei Dao 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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Daniel Marcus Lighting Supervisor/Stage Manager  Mr. Marcus's theater credits include Jekyll and Hyde and Little Shop of HorrorsKiss 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. at Seattle's William Allen Theater;