Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company to present Embodied Ink at DEMO2024

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company will showcase Embodied Ink at the DEMO2024 Closing Performance Night on June 20, 2024 from 5-9 pm at WSA, 161 Water Street, NYC, 4th Floor. Complimentary refreshments will be provided. For more information, the full roster of artists, and to register, visit https://lu.ma/g8acjbdx.

Embodied Ink – MYStudio with Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company is a multimedia dance performance, which transcends the presentation form of Chinese Calligraphy, immerses its viewer in a multisensory environment with a poetic experience. The performance translates stroke motion into body movements, further into real-time calligraphic visuals and sounds with motion capture technology. Drawing inspiration from art history research on the three schools of Chinese calligraphy, Seal Script (zhuanshu), Standard Script (kaishu), and Cursive Script (caoshu), it reconceives the physical media in terms of virtual potentialities, fixed forms in terms of forces and moving particles. The virtual field of the body reveals the imperceptible movement and philosophical ideas underlying cultural heritage.

Artists: Anna Borou Yu, Jiajian Min, Ying Shi, Greta Campo, Siyu Wang, Zezheng Li

Special thanks to NEW INC, New Museum of Contemporary Art, EY Metaverse Lab, ONX Studio, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Andy Chiang, Harald Haraldsson, Tiange Zhou, Zeyu Wang

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company led by Nai-Ni Chen, a visionary in Asian American dance, emphasizes the immigrant experience through multicultural performances. Founded in the early 1990s, the company's diverse repertory bridges Asian and American arts, collaborating with musicians like the Ahn Trio and artists such as Myung Hee Cho. Their global presence includes performances in Mexico, Canada, Russia, and China, supported by esteemed institutions and foundations. Recent works like "A Quest for Freedom," developed with the Ahn Trio, exemplify the Company's commitment to innovative, cross-cultural productions.

As an experimental design group in Boston, MYStudio integrates humanity, art, performance and technology. Founded by Anna Borou Yu and Jiajian Min, MYStudio creates and curates multimedia artworks in the forms of performance, installation, exhibition, film, VRAR, digital publication, and immersive theater. They reflect on the concept of body and space throughout history in different cultures, craft embodied exhibition and cognitive performance in extended reality, and translate cultural heritage into contemporary interpretation with cutting edge technology. Their works have been featured at Venice Biennale, Arte Laguna Prize, Ars Electronica Art Gallery, ACM SIGGRAPH Asia, IRCAM FORUM, IEEE AIART Workshop, etc. Anna and Jiajian have also worked as Fellow and Project Leads at Harvard FAS CAMLab, taught design studios at Tsinghua University, Central Academy of Fine Arts and China Academy of Art, and lectured at Harvard University, Yale University, RISD, NYU, UCSD, etc.

Acknowledgement

Programs of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company have been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/ Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey Cultural Trust, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, DanceNYC Dance Advancement Fund, the Hyde and Watson Foundation, E.J. Grassman Trust, The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, New Music USA, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, American Dance Abroad, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ Cultural Exchange Fund, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, PSEG, Proskauer, WAC Lighting and the Glow Foundation. WQXR is a media partner of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company.

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