The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, the renowned international touring dance company founded by Chinese American choreographer Nai-Ni Chen, and now led by Artistic Director Greta Campo and Executive Director Andy Chiang, will launch its 36th anniversary season at Hostos Center for Arts and Culture. The production celebrates the 2024 Asian American Pacific Islanders Heritage Month, which will showcase Chen’s distinctive cross-cultural style and the diverse influences that informed her work, as well as new commissions since Nai-Ni Chen’s untimely passing in 2021. Highlights include the Company’s 2022 commission, Betwixt and Between, by Jacek Luminski and Peiju Chien-Pott, a 2024 commission, Reincarnation, by choreographer Aloe Ao Liu and the revival of Nai-Ni Chen’s 2000 work Carousel Divertimento for 7 dancers. Performances will take place Saturday May 11th, 7:30PM to 9PM and Sunday May 12, 3PM to 4:30PM. Tickets are $30 at the door $15 for students and seniors and can be purchased by calling (718) 518-4455; at the box office: 450 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10451
or online at: https://mpv.tickets.com/schedule/?agency=HCAV_PL_MPV&orgid=56451#/?view=list&includePackages=true.

The celebration will open with one of Chen’s most playful dances, Carousel Divertimento, which explores the flow of energy and the dynamics of the brush strokes used in painting horses in the art of Chinese ink painting. In addition to Carousel Divertimento, the performance will feature original work from Jacek Luminski and PeiJu Chien-Pott. In 2022, after Nai-Ni Chen passed away, master choreographer Jacek Luminski began to work with PeiJu Chien-Pott to develop Betwixt and Between, a new work for the Company honoring Nai-Ni Chen’s spirit as a choreographer between cultures. The dance premiered in Poland at the Lublin International Dance Festival during the summer of 2023. In 2024, choreographer Aloe Ao Liu from Yunan developed a new dance, Reincarnation, based on her observed rituals of the Dragon People in the mountains of Yunnan province, China. Reincarnation is a seven dancer work which premieres this season. The celebration will conclude with Mirage, a dance inspired by Chen’s journey along the Silk Road with music by Glen Velez. The dance explores trance, rhythmic breathing, and sounds and spiral motions that are characteristic of the dances of Uyghur people of Xinjiang in China.