NYCB's Chun Wai Chan Stars In New Work To Speak Out About AAPI Hate

NYU Tisch will present Ariel Rivka Dance's 15th Anniversary Season at the Jack Crystal Theater, May 31-June 2, 2023. With a mission to champion collaboration between creatives, the multi-disciplinary program offers two world premieres that spotlight elements of humanity, storytelling, and shared experiences, in addition to the screening of a short film choreographed by the company's founder Ariel Grossman, danced by New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Chun Wai Chan.

A collection of short stories set to 19 solo piano movements by composer Stefania de Kenessey, Microvids plays with the barrier between the audience and dancers while offering a series of stories that juxtapose the mundane with the beautiful uncertainty of everyday life. Composed by Kenessey during the COVID-19 pandemic and performed live by pianist Donna Weng Friedman, the range of compositions, each accompanied by an original penned poem available in both Spanish and English, are rhythmically compelling, musically tuneful, and emotionally uplifting. The dance piece was choreographed in 4 separate sections chosen by the dancers and Grossman and then reordered to fit the composer's original score.

What You Want, devised by Grossman and her ensemble of 8 dancers alongside composer Summer Dregs andsupported by Stefania De Kennessy, is a story of personal revolution and self-discovery. Through a female lens, the new work, continued from last Spring's first iteration by the same title, answers questions around identity, agency, limitations, and the importance of finding truth amongst the noise of the world around us. It is a story of a universal struggle met with personal victories and told through intimate duets, revealing solos, and powerful collective displays.

Lastly, the evening offers the first screening of the short film Never Fade Away, choreographed by ARD's founder Ariel Grossman and performed by New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Chun Wai Chan. Directed, written, and produced by Donna Weng Friedman, the film brings viewers on a journey alongside a young Chinese immigrant who arrives in the United States full of hopes and dreams in the 1940's. Based on the true story of Friedman's father, narration, music, and dance celebrates legacy and sacrifice and how a radio and a waltz changed his life. The work was created in response to the rising wave of violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander individuals and aims to promote understanding and tolerance among people of all backgrounds.

"This season is about reemerging," notes Grossman. "I am sharing my post-pandemic, post-divorce self with audiences-even as I am still figuring out who that is. Working with dancers who trust their vulnerabilities and bodies is overwhelming in the most beautiful way, and has been healing and hopeful," she continues. "Where am I? How did I get here?" These are two questions that I have tried to answer with new, open, revealing, and collaborative works, Microvids and What You Want. In the process of choreographing and developing new creative relationships, new questions emerged: "What parts of my identity did I choose, and what was imposed on me? When I am forced to be alone with myself, what do I want? What do I want and what do I need? This season is not about concrete answers; it's about sharing space and truth to redefine and reimagine who we are and what we need."

To post a comment, you must register and login.