Bailey Hall at Broward College to Welcome Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company

The critically acclaimed Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company will perform Song of the Phoenix at Bailey Hall at Broward College in Davie, Florida, on September 24, 2016 at 7:30pm, with a master class and special performance for students on campus on Friday, September 23, 2016.

Experience the majestic thunder of the martial arts and the mysterious whisper of poetry through the global language of dance as performers glide across the stage with color, intensity and a whisper of Chinese tradition. Song of the Phoenix brings audiences on a journey through space and time to a place where tradition meets innovation and freedom arises from discipline. The phoenix is known in both eastern and western cultures as an awe-inspiring creature of death-defying strength and majesty. For the West, it symbolizes renewal, and for the East, the power and mystery of the feminine. Song of the Phoenix features original and unique choreography by Nai-Ni Chen, whose repertoire seamlessly blends ancient rituals and modern concepts.

Bailey Hall at Broward Collegeis located at 3501 Davie Road in Davie, FL 33314. Tickets are $20-$38 and can be purchased at www.baileyhall.org/signature-series/item/nai-ni-chen-dance-song-of-the-phoenix.

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About The Nai-Ni Chen Program at Bailey Hall:

Artistic Director/Choreographer: Nai-Ni Chen

Lighting Design/Supervisor/Stage Manager: Tony Marques

Dancers: Greta Campo, Antonio Cangiano, Nai-Ni Chen, Alessio Crognale, Candace Jarvis, Hannah Jew, Jerard Palazo, Bo Pang, Patrick Piras

Incense

Choreography: Nai-Ni Chen

Music: Joan La Barbara

Costumes: Karen Young

Lighting Design: A.C. Hickox

Dancers:Greta Campo, Antonio Cangiano, Alessio Crognale, Candace Jarvis

This dance was originally inspired by the sculpture titled Nine Muses by Carlos Dorian installed at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey. The choreographer also draws ideas from the offering of incense in the long corridors of an ancient temple from her childhood. The rising white clouds of the incense is said to bring the believer's prayer from their hearts to God's ears. The music reminds her of the mystical elements of nature and the more abstract, formal elements that gives structure to our faith and thus our lives.

Duet on the River of Dreams

Choreography: Nai-Ni Chen

Music: Forrest Fang

Costume: Karen Young

Lighting Design: Yi-Chung Chen

Dancers: Jerard Palazo, Bo Pang

This dance is part of the Dance Drama " White Mountain Black Water". In Northeast China, the Black Dragon River lies beneath the White Mountain. Each spring, the glacier on top of the mountain melts and flows down to the fertile soil and river beneath. In this dance, the choreographer imagines the beautiful landscape that reflects the tall mountain in the adjacent water. A fisherman on his boat paddles through the river. Beside him, the spirit of the water accompanies him through his long journey into eternity.

Raindrops

Choreography: Nai-Ni Chen

Music: Robert Rich, Sainkho Namtchylak

Costumes: Olu-Orondava

Lighting Design: A.C. Hickox

Dancers: Greta Campo, Candace Jarvis, Hannah Jew, Bo Pang

The choreographer draws inspiration from her childhood memory of the Taiwanese city in which she was born, Keelong, also known as the "Rain Harbor."

Way of Five - Fire

Choreography: Nai-Ni Chen

Music: Tan Dun

Costumes: Nai-Ni Chen

Lighting Design: Susan Summers

Dancers: Greta Campo, Candace Jarvis, Jerard Palazo, Bo Pang, Patrick Piras

This is Nai-Ni Chen's first exploration of the ancient Chinese theory that the cycles of creation and destruction correspond to the ever-changing phenomena of nature. The "Five" refers to the five elements: wood, water, fire, metal, and earth. Each element, as part of the forces of nature, creates another in harmony and destroys another in conflict. This exploration is focus on the element of "Fire".

Calligraffiti

Choreography: Nai-Ni Chen

Music: Huang Ruo

Costumes: Nai-Ni Chen

Lighting Design: Yi-Chung Chen

Dancers: Greta Campo, Antonio Cangiano, AlessioCrognale, Candace Jarvis,

Hannah Jew, Jerard Palazo, Bo Pang, Patrick Piras

'Cross Current" is a project with composer Huang Ruo and commissioned by New Music USA. Ms. Chen and Mr Huang wish to reflect the cross-cultural experience that they encountered in this project. The journey of an immigrant adapting to the new homeland is full of struggle and discovery. In this new dance, Ms. Chen attempts to illustrate this by looking at the elegant and graceful line of Chinese calligraphy and the bold, colorful street art she sees on subways and buildings of New York City. This contrast is a parallel of an immigrant's journey. We strive to honor the tradition and at the same time advance the state of the art towards the future through our unique cross cultural experience.

Mirage

Choreography: Nai-Ni Chen

Music: Glen Velez

Costumes: Jon Can Coskunses

Lighting Design: Carolyn Wong

Dancers: Greta Campo, Antonio Cangiano, Nai-Ni Chen, Candace Jarvis,

Hannah Jew, Jerard Palazo, Bo Pang, Patrick Piras

Inspired by the unique rhythms and dance movement of the Uyghur people of Xinjiang, China, Ms. Chen created a new movement vocabulary for this dance. The tranquility and passion in this dance evoke the images of the desert area and the people who lived in the oasis town. The music for this dance was commissioned by the Live Music for Dance Program of American Music Center.

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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. The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company is a vital resource of culture in the eastern United States. Each year, thousands of audiences are transported beyond cultural boundaries to the common ground between tradition and innovation, discipline and freedom, and form and spirit. According to The New York Times, they "...essentially recreated nature..."

Choreographer and 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 fifteen 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).

Bailey Hall brings the highest quality artists to Broward College over the course of the school year. In addition to performing on the Bailey Hall stage artists provide master classes for students and also go out into the community. For more, visit www.baileyhall.org.

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