CSC Dance Fest Presents Choreographer/Dancer Nai-Ni Chen's Dance Company | Explore Warren

 

CSC Dance Fest Presents Choreographer/Dancer Nai-Ni Chen's Dance Company

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company

Centenary Stage Company wraps up the 2017 Dance Fest with three performances by the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, led by Choreographer/Dancer Nai-Ni Chen. A blossom of color, energy and motion that 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.

First up on Friday, March 31, 2017, at 10:30am is a School Matinee that is open to the public as well, as the company presents Red Firecracker. A spectacular production of dazzling props, colorful costumes, mesmerizing music, fantastic acrobatics, and lively dance, Red Firecracker is the legend of the origin of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration where a group of villagers defeated the monster of the ages and started the custom of decorating and wearing red, giving gifts, lighting up the sky with fireworks and playing with firecrackers. It is a delightful production for families to enjoy together, perfect for ages 5 to adult.

Red Firecracker will be performed again on Saturday, April 1, 2017, at 2pm.

School groups should contact the CSC administrative office directly to book their groups, while individual ticket prices are the same for the Friday and Saturday performances, and can be purchased online or at the CSC Box Office.

Dance Fest closes on Sunday, April 9, at 2pm, with the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company showcasing its visionary new program, CrossCurrent, comprised of a series of works that highlight 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 her 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; and her most recent group work, Calligraffiti Variations with music by Huang Ruo for seven 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).

All three performances are presented in the Sitnik Theater of the Lackland Performing Arts Center, located on the campus of Centenary University in Hackettstown, NJ.

For more information or to purchase tickets visit www.centenarystageco.org or call the Centenary Stage Company box office at (908) 979-0900. The box office is open Monday- Friday from 1pm-5pm, and opens two hours prior to every performance. The CSC box office is located in the Lackland Center, 715 Grand Avenue Hackettstown, NJ. Centenary Stage Company can also be found on social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The 2016-17 season of performing art events at the Centenary Stage Company is made possible through the generous support of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the NJ Sate Council on the Arts, the Shubert Foundation, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, the Sandra Kupperman Foundation, and CSC corporate sponsors. These include Premier Season Sponsor Heath Village Retirement Community, Silver Sponsor Hackettstown Reginal Medical center, Home Instead Senior Care (Washington), The Holiday Inn in Budd Lake, Fulton Bank of New Jersey, as well as Centenary Stage Company members and supporters.