The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company welcomed the Lunar New Year with a five-part performance at QC\u2019s Kupferberg Center for the Arts on February 1st.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The night began with the spellbinding \u201cLion in the City,\u201d choreographed by Peiju Chien-Pott and dancers Kathryn Taylor, Esteban Santamaria, and Caleb Baker. The performance featured hip hop stage debuts by hip hop legends Kwikstep and Rockafella and music by DJ KS360. \u201cFirst of all, the common thing between Hip Hop and the Lion Dance is the beat,\u201d Executive Director Andy Chiang told The Knight News. In his words, both forms rely \u201con their rhythmic structure, and the audience can hear it and understand it instinctively. The beat makes you move.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The spectacular finale, \u201cThe Festival (Dragon Dance)\u201d was choreographed by the late Nai-Ni Chen, who co-founded the company in 1988 with her husband Andy Chiang. Set to traditional Chinese music, the piece featured dancers\u00a0 Yuchin \u201cKiki\u201d Tseng, Madeleine Lee, Madelyn Sarver, Lorenzo Guerrini, Sarah Botero, Caleb Barker, Kathryn Taylor, Esteban Saantamaria, and Yao Zhong Zhang. When they were not dancing with their feet, it seemed as if they were listening to the music and dancing in their heads while they admired the movements and their teammates around them. It comes as no surprise that it resonates so strongly with the audience in Flushing.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany times, our dancers have to dance from the beginning of the show to the end. They have to have the stamina to dance and deliver drama, technique and expression through the whole show while maintaining physical and spatial relationships with all the other dancers on stage,\u201d said Chiang.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, a renowned international touring dance company, is recognized over the globe but will always find a home here in Flushing. For over twenty years, the company has highlighted the importance of cross-cultural understanding with their performances at Queens College.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is always an exciting challenge to come to Flushing to perform for such a diverse audience base. For a company with a mission to bring cross-cultural awareness and experience to people, it is one of the most challenging and interesting audiences for us to work with. A nod of appreciation from the Flushing audience means we can bring the appreciation of the arts to a diverse array of people; it is a thrilling experience,\u201d said Andy Chiang.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe piece that stood out to me the most was the lion dance. It was cool to see how Chinese traditions can evolve through the combination of Chinese culture and elements of American modern dance,\u201d said QC student and Geology major Lok Yee Ho. \u201cI would recommend this performance to others because of the fusion of contemporary dance with martial arts and traditional Chinese folk dance. It would be a great way to celebrate the Year of the Horse.\u201dThe performers bowed their heads gracefully as the audience gave a well-deserved standing ovation. For more information about the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company and their next dates, you can go to their website at www.nainichen.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company welcomed the Lunar New Year with a five-part performance at QC\u2019s Kupferberg Center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-149682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}