Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company presents the Awakening on March 24, 25, 26, 2022 at 7:30 pm and March 27, 2022 at 3pm at the New York Live Arts Theater. Tickets are $20, with $15 tickets for students and seniors, and $50 VIP tickets, and can be purchased at newyorklivearts.org/event/awakening/. 

Awakening is the final production of the late choreographer Nai-Ni Chen before her untimely passing in December 2021. This expansive production is the artistic embodiment of Nai-Ni Chen’s observation of and reaction to all of the events that happened around her: the division of society, the quest for social equity, the dual beauty and trauma of isolation, and her hope for unity. Nai-Ni Chen’s signature choreographic style crosses many boundaries as she brings unique elements of Chinese culture into the contemporary dance world. The Company is including her seminal work Incense, as a prayer to her spirit and to remember her choreographic grace and power.

Awakening includes:
One of the last and final work of Nai-Ni Chen, completed by PeiJu Chien-Pott with commissioned music by Jason Kao Hwang, Unity (Premiere) was inspired by the story that a single stick is easy to break but a bunch is not easily breakable. In this dance, the choreographer integrated numerous elements of Chinese Martial Art into the dance, and all the company dancers received regular training from Martial Arts champion Sifu Yuan Zhang. The story speaks to the power of gathering and Nai-Ni Chen’s hope for community unity during our struggle for equity and anti-hate.

Incense (2003), a dance originally inspired by the sculpture titled Nine Muses by Carlos Dorian installed at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey. The choreographer draws ideas from the offering of incense in the long corridors of an ancient temple in her childhood. The raising white clouds of the incense is said to bring the believer’s prayer from their hearts to god’s ears. The music, by Joan La Barbara, reminds her of the mystical elements of nature and the more abstract, formal elements that gives structure to our faith and thus our lives.

Truthbound (2018) was Nai-Ni Chen’s response to media and Democracy. At this time, everyone is overburdened with news and ideas from every direction, the dance represents Nai-Ni’s reaction to the crisis of faith and trust at this time. Truthbound received critical acclaim in Germany. “In their body and visual language, sensitively creative fantasy, and poetry. Tradition and experiment are combined with dance-like precision and dynamics.” … writes Volksfreund Critic Eva-Maria Reuther.

Shadow force (2020) was created during the pandemic mostly on zoom with limited rehearsal with dancers in person. The dance is the choreographer’s response to the effect of the isolation, personal struggle, anti-Asian hate, and the social unrest that was happening around her. Despite the darkness, she said that the ending was her vision of hope through struggle, and that hope is something we all share.

Beginning in 2016, Nai-Ni Chen worked with Aljira Contemporary Arts in Newark, NJ on Introspection (2019), a project where audience members would enter the gallery at night with no light on but were given a flashlight. Dancers would be doing improvised or choreographed movement in front of the paintings, sculptures or art works. The result of three years of Aljira at night is Introspection, a work about the many facets of identity, how we view and treat each other, and how we construct our own identity based on other people’s view about us.