About the Company 

 

A blosssom of color, energy and motion, "like endlessly proliferating forces of cosmic energy," says the New York Times. The dances of Nai-Ni Chen fuse the dynamic freedom of American modern dance with the grace and splendor of Asian art. The Company's productions take the audience beyond cultural boundaries to where tradition meets innovation and freedom arises from discipline. 

Choreographer/Dancer Nai-Ni Chen is an artist whose work defies categorization, as she is continually working on new ideas from influences around the world. Her mesmerizing and dramatic contemporary choreography has gained increasing recognition among domestic and international presenters and festivals. Recently, the Company was honored by a distinctive grant award from both the President's Committee on Arts and Humanities and the Department of State to represent the United States in a seven-city tour arranged by the Tamaulipas International Arts Festival in Mexico .  

Presented by some of the most prestigious concert halls in the United States , from the Joyce Theater in New York to the Ordway Center in Minnesota and the Cerritos Center in California , the Company has mounted twenty national tours and seven tours abroad.  Ms. Chen’s work has been presented by such acclaimed international festivals as the Silesian International Contemporary Dance Festival and the Konfrontations International Dance Festival, both in Poland , the Chang Mu International Arts Festival in Korea and the China International Dance Festival.

The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company also has the unique honor of having received more than twelve awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and numerous Citations of Excellence and grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In the First China International Dance Festival in Kunming , Yunan, the China Dance Association presented to the Company its most prestigious honor for companies not based in China , the Golden Lotus Award.

The Company's commissioned dances include American Landscape (New Jersey Performing Arts Center), Peach Flower Landscape (Lincoln Center Institute), Qian Kun (Joyce Theater), Tianji/Dragons on the Wall (Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust), The Way of Five (Towson University) and Unfolding (Dancing in the Streets).

In addition to its nearly 40-week season of touring and performing, the Company also serves as a cultural ambassador for children and families in the NY/NJ/CT/PA area. Its outreach ensemble program The Art of Chinese Dance has, since 1995, been reaching more than 40,000 young people each year.  The  Company has also developed Arts in Education residency programs for many school districts to bring culture and arts into educational settings. Its residency program for Chinese American heritage has been selected by the Chinese Language Teachers Association for Primary and Secondary Schools as a new model for collaborative language and arts education in primary and secondary schools.  This year, the company will continue to conduct residency project with New York City 's Shuang Wen Dual Language School and the Litchfield Poetry-Live project in Conneticut.

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company has been the resident company at the Harlem School of the Arts in New York City for the past ten years.  It has received grant award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Department of State, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Fund for US Artists at International Festivals & Exhibitions, the Hyde and Watson Foundation, the Connelly Foundation, the E.J. Grassmann Trust, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Lillian Pitkin Schenck Fund, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Verizon, Sony, and others.   

[Company Bio in Chinese]

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