Tracings, Island, Charlie Chan and the Mystery of Love, We choose to go to the moon
Spouse
Jameson Freeman
Dana Tai Soon Burgess (born February 26, 1968) is an American choreographer and dancer.[1] In May 2016 Burgess was named the Smithsonian's first-ever choreographer in residence at the National Portrait Gallery.[2][3][4][5] His work has tended to focus on the "hyphenated person" - someone who is of mixed ethnic or cultural heritage - as well as issues of belonging and societal acceptance.[6] He serves as a cultural envoy for the U.S. State Department, an appointment he uses to promote international cultural dialogue through "the global language of dance". Throughout his career, Burgess has performed, taught, and choreographed around the world.[6]
Burgess was born in California but grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the son of visual artists Joseph James Burgess Jr. and Anna Kang Burgess. He began dancing at the age of 16 after a brief childhood career as a competitive martial artist. His mother is descended from the first group of Korean immigrants to come to America. His earliest Korean American ancestors are Chin Hyung Chai, who arrived in Hawaii aboard the Gaelic, known as the "first ship", in 1903, and Man Soo Kang who arrived on the ship Manchuria in 1904.[7] They became Hawaiian plantation workers.
After graduating from Santa Fe High School in 1985, Burgess attended the University of New Mexico and studied dance and Asian history. Burgess graduated in 1990 and moved to Washington, D.C., where he attended the George Washington University and completed a master's degree in Fine Arts in 1994. He has trained with notable dancers, such as Tim Wengerd and Judith Bennahum. He also studied the Michio Itō technique in Washington, D.C.[6]
Career
Choreography & Dance Company
In 1992, Burgess established the Moving Forward: Contemporary Asian American Dance Company. This was renamed in 2005 to Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co. (DTSB&Co.) and again in 2013 to Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company (DTSBDC). It is the preeminent contemporary dance company in the Washington, D.C. area.[8]
In 2006 he retired from dancing due to a bad back. But in 2008 he returned to the stage as a stand-in for one of his dancers, which resulted in a Washington Post review by critic Sarah Kaufman called "Retired Burgess Hasn't Lost A Step" that said "Burgess has emerged as the area's leading dance artist, consistently following his own path and producing distinctive, well-considered works." The performance included the premiere of Hyphen, a surrealist dance work featuring video images by Nam June Paik from the 1960s, which Burgess was granted special access to.[9]
In May, 2014 he was quoted in Smithsonian magazine as saying his artistic focus had shifted to exploring the idea of cultural "confluence".[10]
Burgess has retired from dancing due to a back injury, but is still teaching, researching and choreographing extensively.[11]
Burgess has collaborated with renowned lighting designer Jennifer Tipton, designer Han Feng, sculptor John Dreyfuss, artist CYJO, among others.[12][13][14][15]
Touring
Burgess's dance works have been performed in numerous venues, including the Kennedy Center, La Mama, the United Nations headquarters, Dance Place, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Asia Society, and the Lincoln Center Out of Doors. He spoke and presented his dance Dariush at the White House at the invitation of President Barack Obama in May 2013 as part of National Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.[16]
Burgess's choreography has also been commissioned by Ballet Memphis and the Kennedy Center. His work "The Nightingale" toured to over 70 American cities.
Burgess' work has focused on the immigrant experience and cultural divides, which has resulted in several of his performances being showcased on prominent State Department sponsored tours around the world. He has taught, lectured, performed and toured around the world in countries such as Surinam, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Korea, China, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Venezuela, Germany, Latvia, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, Peru, and Cambodia, among others.[11]
Recent work
On August 11, 2013, Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company performed a new dance work Revenant Elegy at The National Gallery of Art, inspired by their Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes Exhibit, organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum of London.[17] This was followed by a residency at the National Portrait Gallery, where Burgess created a dance work called Homage inspired by the museum's "Dancing the Dream" exhibition. Both Revenant Elegy and Homage were performed at the Kennedy Center in February, 2014.[18]
He was the first Smithsonian choreographer-in-residence at the National Portrait Gallery from 2013 to 2014. In April 2014, Burgess premiered the new work Confluence there to critical acclaim.[19] Burgess and his dancers were featured as part of the museum's “Dancing the Dream” exhibition, where his portrait hung alongside modern-dance pioneers including Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, and contemporary 'masters' Twyla Tharp and Mark Morris. Audiences and museum tourists were able to observe the "living exhibit" of Burgess choreographing and rehearsing with his dancers from August, 2013 through July, 2014.[15]
Burgess' portrait was previously featured at the National Portrait Gallery in the KYOPO exhibit, a work by artist CYJO in 2011.[20] Burgess's 2008 surrealist work "Hyphen" was re-staged to be included alongside an orchestral multimedia performance called "KYOPO: Multiplicity" by CYJO in the museum's Kogod Courtyard in 2012.[21]
In May 2014 he told Smithsonian magazine that his work Confluence, created as part of DTSBDC's residency at National Portrait Gallery, explored “an underlying inter-connectedness" of all people. When asked if this work was "influenced by America’s increasingly diverse population", he said, “Yes, I think the cultural terrain is changing as is my company’s focus. Somehow I feel that my aesthetic is embracing a much larger vision of humanity’s shared emotional journey.”[10]
In November 2014 the Korean Cultural Center of Washington, DC presented an exhibition called "Ancestry, Artistry, Choreography" about Burgess, his immigrant ancestors, and his dance company that "document[ed] his multicultural background and its influence on his ballet-meets-contemporary work".[22] The exhibition featured family photographs and artifacts, including his grandfather's 1903 passport, as well as 22 large photographs, costumes, props and video from the dance company's 22-year history.[23]
Burgess premiered Picasso Dances, a work inspired by four Pablo Picasso paintings at the Kreeger Museum, in March 2015 to critical acclaim. The piece was a result of a 3-month residency at the museum.[24]
In September 2015 he premiered "We choose to go to the moon", a dance created in partnership with NASA and inspired by John F. Kennedy's 1962 speech of the same name, the space race, and "humanity's shared relationship with the cosmos", at the Kennedy Center. The tech-heavy and multimedia performance included interviews conducted by Burgess with astronauts (including Bruce McCandless), space scientists and experts, and a New Mexican medicine woman. The work received favorable reviews and significant press attention.[25][26][27]
Burgess launched Slant Podcast, "a discussion series with Asian-American luminaries from the arts, academia, journalism, and other sectors about identity, belonging, and creating in America" in June 2021. Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang was the first guest.[34][35]
Youth programs
At the time he founded his dance company, Burgess also established the Moving Forward: Asian American Youth Program, which was a summer program for Asian American youth. The program still operates under the name DTSB Asian American Youth Program, and is a year-round mentoring program for high school students. Feeling "caught between different cultural worlds" as a child, Burgess has said he created the program as a way for young people to explore identity, artistic self-expression, and their Asian American heritage.[36]
Burgess during a public performance on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2002
Teaching
Burgess has taught at the Kirov Academy of Ballet and the Washington Ballet in Washington, D.C., the Hamburg Ballet in Germany, the National Ballet of Peru, San Marcos University in Peru, Sejong University in Korea, as well as in China, Mongolia, India, Jordan, and the British Virgin Islands, among others.
Burgess' teaching career has also included George Mason University, Georgetown University, the University of Maryland and George Washington University. At 26 Burgess became Director of Georgetown University's dance program in 1994. He began teaching at George Washington University in 2000, where he is currently Professor of Dance.[37] Burgess designed and oversaw the implementation of a new, global distance and onsite learning MFA program for dance at the George Washington University in 2011.[38] He chaired George Washington University's Department of Theatre and Dance from 2009 to 2017.[39]
He has served on the board of Asian American Arts and Media and was a commissioner for the Commission for the Arts and Humanities for the District of Columbia[6] and as a commissioner for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Affairs for Washington, DC.[40]
Awards and recognitions
In 1994 he received the award for Outstanding Emerging Artist at the 12th Annual Mayor Arts Award Ceremony. His dance company was awarded the Mayor's Arts Award for Excellence in 2005.[41] He has completed two senior Fulbrights in dance and won seven Metro D.C. Dance Awards as well as the Pola Nirenska Award.[6]
He has been honored by the Smithsonian Institution and was a prominent feature in the Smithsonian exhibition "A Korean American Century" as part of the Korean American Centennial Celebration in 2003.[42]
Stacy Taus-Bolstad mentioned Burgess and some of his career highlights in her 2005 book Koreans in America alongside comedian Margaret Cho under "Famous Korean Americans".[43]
In 2009 Burgess was featured in advertisements for the "New 202" campaign produced by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to highlight art and culture in the nation's capital.[44]
He has been referred to as the "poet laureate of Washington dance".[45]
In 2012 he was described as "not only a Washington prize, but a national dance treasure" by Pulitzer Prize winner Sarah Kaufman.[11]
March 18, 2017 was declared Dana Tai Soon Burgess Day in Santa Fe, New Mexico.[47][48][49]
A short documentary about Burgess and the dance company, with funding from the Humanities Council DC, called "Passages from the Journey", was premiered online in December 2020.[50]
Burgess was the 2021 recipient of the Selma Jeanne Cohen Dance Lecture Award, presented by the Fulbright Association.[52]
Personal life
In 2011, "The Reliable Source" reported that Burgess became engaged to yoga teacher and playwright Jameson Freeman[53][54] while touring the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.[55] The couple married in Santa Fe, New Mexico in September 2015.[56] Freeman won the Democratic primary for the 86th district of the West Virginia House of Delegates in May, 2022.[57][58][59] He lost in the general election to the Republican incumbent.[60][61]
Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super highway" to describe the future of telecommunications.
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., focusing on Asian art. The Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and Sackler galleries house the largest Asian art research library in the country.
William Forsythe is an American dancer and choreographer formerly resident in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and now based in Vermont. He is known for his work with the Ballet Frankfurt (1984–2004) and The Forsythe Company (2005–2015). Recognized for the integration of ballet and visual arts, which displayed both abstraction and forceful theatricality, his vision of choreography as an organizational practice has inspired him to produce numerous installations, films, and web-based knowledge creation, incorporating the spoken word and experimental music.
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is a historic art museum between 7th, 9th, F, and G Streets NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Founded in 1962 and opened to the public in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous Americans. Along with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the museum is housed in the historic Old Patent Office Building.
Washington, D.C.'s Chinatown is a small, historic area of Downtown Washington, D.C. along H and I Streets between 5th and 8th Streets, Northwest. The area was once home to thousands of Chinese immigrants, but fewer than 300 remained in 2017. The current neighborhood was the second in Washington to be called “Chinatown” since 1931. Originally, the first Chinatown was built in the Federal Triangle on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue some time after 1851, but was moved to the H Street area when a new federal building was built there. In 1986, a Chinese gate was built over H Street at 7th Street. By 1997, prominent landmarks such as the Capital One Arena, a sports and entertainment arena, had gentrified the area. The neighborhood is served by the Gallery Place station of the Washington Metro.
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The culture of Washington, D.C. is reflected in its status as the capital of the United States and the presence of the federal government, its large Black population, and its role as the largest city in the Chesapeake Bay region. The presence of the U.S. federal government, in particular, has been instrumental in developing numerous cultural institutions throughout the city, such as museums and performing arts centers. The city's historic Black population has also helped drive cultural activities and artistic pursuits. During the early 20th century, for example, Washington's U Street Corridor became an important center for African American culture.
Santa Fe High School is a public secondary school located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1899, it is one of the oldest high schools in New Mexico. The school exclusively educates a secondary student-based body, ninth through twelfth grades.
Dance Place is an arts organization in the Edgewood neighborhood of Northeast Washington, D.C. The nearest metro station is Brookland/CUA on the Red Line.
Albert Pierce Evans was an American ballet dancer and choreographer. He joined the New York City Ballet in 1988, became a principal dancer in 1995, making him the second African American dancer to hold this position, and had pursue choreography. He retired from performing in 2010, then served as a ballet master until his death.
Frederick "Erick" Hawkins was an American modern-dance choreographer and dancer.
Moses Soyer was an American social realist painter.
CYJO, born Cindy Hwang (1974),is an American Fine-art photographer. She is known for her photographic and textual projects, such as Substructure and KYOPO Project.
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References
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