Brooklyn Center to Welcome Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company for Lunar New Year Celebration, 1/25

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College continues its 60th Anniversary Season, once again partnering with Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company for its second annual Lunar New Year Celebration, on Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 3pm. Tickets are $25 for adults and $12.50 for children (ages 12 and under) and can be purchased at BrooklynCenter.org or by calling the box office at 718-951-4500 (Tue-Sat, 1pm-6pm).

Recipient of China's prestigious Golden Lotus Award, choreographer Nai-Ni Chen and her company will once again take Brooklyn Center's audiences on a visually delightful, culturally rich tour of the 3,000-year-old Chinese civilization. This year's celebration honors The Year of the Sheep -- a year of peace, love, and woolly gentleness according to the Chinese calendar. Graceful dancers and dazzling acrobats will portray a variety of characters from Chinese lore, including dancing lions, dragons that fly out of the ocean, and the nomadic, sheep-herding tribes of China, all in a pageant of color, beauty, and excitement. The company has partnered with the Consulate General of China to bring 10 distinguished guest artists from China to perform, hailing from SiChuan and Beijing.

The Chinese Music Ensemble of New York, the oldest, largest, and only full-scale Chinese orchestra in the United States, will once again perform in this year's celebration, accompanying the dancers with traditional instruments such as pear-shaped lute and hammered dulcimer. Last year's celebration, commemorating The Year of the Horse, also included authentic Peking Opera performers, as well as traditional ribbon and fan dances and the famous dragon dance. This year's audiences can expect similar pageantry and spectacle. The festivities extend into the lobby, where an arts and crafts display showcases more of the culture and creativity of the Chinese-American community.

The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company includes dancers Tyler Brown, Greta Campo, Chloe Crade, Yoo Sik Kim, Kristen Lau, Kyung Joon Lee, Nijawwon Matthews, Bo Pang, Ying Shi, Yao Zhong Zhang, Min Zhou, Guidong Zhou, and Guixuan Zhuang, along with various guest artists. The Chinese Music Ensemble of New York will also perform as part of the program.

About Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company - Now in its 26th season, New Jersey's acclaimed Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company seeks to bridge the gap in understanding between cultures by fusing the dynamic freedom of American modern dance with the grace and splendor of Asian art, taking their audiences on journeys beyond cultural boundaries to where tradition meets innovation and freedom arises from discipline.

Since its inception in 1988, the Company has earned a broad base of public support, becoming the pride and joy of Asian-American communities across the United States with tours to major performing arts centers in more than 30 states. In 2001, the Company also began touring abroad and has performed in Central America, Korea, China, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, and Mexico. Having participated in teaching and performance activities at both the Beijing International Dance Festival in China and the Chang Mu International Dance Festival in Seoul, South Korea in 2014, it is one of the most widely toured professional Asian-American companies in the United States, reaching more than 100,000 audience members a year.

In addition to its extensive season of touring and performing, the Company also has developed Arts in Education residency programs in many school districts to bring culture and arts into educational settings. For three years, the Company conducted the afterschool dance program at Shuang Wen School in New York City and the Poetry Live! Project with Litchfield Performing Arts, Inc. in Connecticut, which reached more than 1,000 children each year. In New Jersey, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company has been in residence at Westminster School in Elizabeth for more than 10 years and has successfully integrated dance, music, and poetry with academic disciplines.

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company has been awarded grants 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.

About the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York - A non-profit organization founded in 1961, the Chinese Music Ensemble is the oldest, largest, and only full-scale Chinese orchestra in the United States and the Americas, with a membership of more than forty musicians. The Ensemble's repertory ranges from ancient classical to modern compositions, spanning some fifteen hundred years of history. With the goal of promoting Chinese music, the Ensemble has performed at major concert halls in New York and at schools, colleges, and venues throughout the Eastern United States.

About Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts - Founded in 1954, Brooklyn Center for the PerformingArts at Brooklyn College presents outstanding performing arts and arts education programs, reflective of Brooklyn's diverse communities, at affordable prices. Each season, Brooklyn Center welcomes over 65,000 people to the 2,400 seat Walt Whitman Theatre, including up to 45,000 schoolchildren from over 300 schools who attend their SchoolTime series, one of the largest arts-in-education programs in the borough. In recognition of its commitment to quality family programming, Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts has been recognized as both Brooklyn's Best Theater or Theater Group for Kids and Brooklyn's Best Place for Family Bonding by ParentsConnect Parents' Picks Awards. In 2014-15, Brooklyn Center celebrates its 60th Anniversary Season of presenting world-class performances on the Brooklyn College campus.

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