CSC Dance Fest: Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company presents "CrossCurrent" | Explore Warren

 

CSC Dance Fest: Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company presents "CrossCurrent"

Sunday, April 9, 2017 - 2:00pm

Centenary Stage Company's Dance Fest 2017 wraps up the Nai Ni Chen Dance Company presenting "CrossCurrent". A blossom of color, energy and motion the The New York Times said was "like endlessly proliferating forces of cosmic energy," the dances of Nai-Ni Chen fuse the dynamic freedom of American spirit with the grace and splendor of the Asian soul.

The company will showcase its visionary new program, CrossCurrent, comprising of a series of work that highlights Ms. Chen’s unique cross-cultural contemporary dance style that brings together the freedom and American modern dance and the discipline of her Asian American heritage. The dances in CrossCurrent showcase different aspects of Nai-Ni Chen’s work as she encounters different elements of western culture as a woman from the East. The program, will feature Nai-Ni Chen’s most recent work Space Oddity with music by David Bowie adapted to classical instruments for the Ahn Trio, as well as the Ahn’s Yu Rung by Pat Matheny; The Way of Five – Earth, part of the five element series from Ms. Chen where she studies the creative and destructive power of the elemental forces that govern our lives; her most recent group work, Calligraffiti Variations with music by Huang Ruo for 7 dancers where she associates her experience with the street art form and the supreme art of Chinese calligraphy that influenced her movement style since she started to dance.

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 20 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 15 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).

This 2pm performance will be presented in the Sitnik Theater of the Lackland Center.

Centenary Stage Company

Centenary Stage Company is a performing arts center located on the campus of Centenary University. Year-round events include Professinal Theater Series, music events, dance events, a Women Playwrights Series, Young Performers Workshop, an annual holiday spectatular, and more!

Learn More: