Report To The Community 2021

emembering
nai-ni chen
The masterful modern
dancer, choreographer
and champion of Chinese
dance traditions was an
integral part of NJPAC’s
dance programming
– Robert Johnson
One of NJPAC’s longestenduring
traditions is its Chinese
New Year performance — a
riot of fluttering silks, dazzling
acrobatics, puppetry and
dance — presented each year
since the Arts Center’s opening
season by the Nai-Ni Chen
Dance Company, a troupe
co-founded by its namesake
choreographer and her
husband, Andy Chiang.
In December 2021, about a
month before the company was
set to celebrate The Year of the
Water Tiger at NJPAC, Chen, 62,
passed away while traveling in
Hawaii. Her death saddened
everyone at the Arts Center.
“She was such a kind
person,” says David Rodriguez,
Executive Vice President and
Executive Producer. “So many
in the NJPAC audience knew
her for more than 20 years of
Chinese New Year celebrations
here, but she was also an
exquisite choreographer of
contemporary work that
merged her Chinese heritage
with modern dance. And behind
the scenes, she was a mentor for
NJPAC’s Jersey Moves Festival
of Dance since it began.”
A highly respected artist who
was a pillar of the Asian-
American arts community, Chen
was known for her outstanding
choreographic craft, rooted
in America’s modern dance
tradition. Yet the precision
and rigor of traditional
Chinese dance informed her
choreography, and her own
performances as a dancer.
Her personal journey as an
immigrant, and as the child of
refugees, gave her a grasp
of history and politics, and an
acute sensitivity to the plight of
ordinary people caught up in
the maelstrom of world events.
While Chen’s primary focus
was on contemporary dance,
she had received a thorough
grounding in traditional Chinese
performing arts while studying
in her native Taiwan. This
experience would serve Chen
in a way she never expected.
When NJPAC’s Founding Vice
President for Arts Education,
Philip Thomas, first encountered
the company performing at
the John F. Kennedy Center for
the Performing Arts in 1996,
Thomas suggested that the
Fort Lee-based troupe should
appear regularly at NJPAC.
The Arts Center opened its doors
the following year with Chen
named as a Principal Affiliated
Artist. Chen conceived of the
Chinese New Year celebration
as a way of representing her
community, honoring her
teachers and introducing
audiences to Chinese culture.
“NJPAC is the mother of
it all,” says Andy Chiang,
recalling the origins of the
annual celebration.
According to Chiang,
the company spends
two-and-a-half months
each year preparing the New
Year’s spectacle, which always
combines fresh material with
old favorites. Typically, it
showcases puppet lions
romping with their handlers
and performing tricks with
a magic pearl (Double Lions
Welcoming the Spring) and
the thrilling Dragon Dance,
in which the Dragon winds
its way around the stage like
a speeding express train,
golden scales flashing.
In between these numbers,
the company typically treats
audiences to folk dances
from China’s minority regions,
excerpts from Chinese
operas and music performed
on Chinese instruments.
The company also offers
a version of its Chinese
New Year celebration for
school children, through the
Nai-Ni Chen saw
her company’s
annual Chinese
New Year
celebration
at NJPAC as
a way of
representing
her community,
honoring her
teachers and
introducing
audiences to
Chinese culture.
Arts Center’s SchoolTime
Performance series. Chiang
estimates that 100,000
people have seen the show
at NJPAC over the years.
NJPAC also showcased
Chen’s contemporary
choreography. “Every time we
turn to NJPAC, they always
come back in a supportive
way to make presenting or
commissioning Nai-Ni’s work
possible,” Chiang says.
A milestone in this 25-year
relationship was the 2001
premiere of Dragons on the Wall,
co-commissioned by NJPAC for
the Alternate Routes Festival,
an exploration of censorship,
imprisonment and the invasion
of privacy in totalitarian
societies, inspired by the poetry
of Chinese dissident Bei Dao.
NJPAC also sponsored the
premiere of Isle of Dunes
(2006), a moody evocation of
the American Southwest that
was part of Chen’s American
Landscape series. Chen’s
playful Raindrops (2003),
and three dances in her Way
of Five series (2007-2010) all
received premieres at NJPAC.
Most recently, NJPAC hosted
the premiere of 2018’s A Quest
for Freedom, a collaboration
between Chen and the Ahn Trio.
Chiang remains determined
to hold the troupe together.
Dancer Greta Campo was
appointed Interim Artistic
Director, while PeiJu Chien-Pott,
a former star of the Martha
Graham Dance Company,
has come on board as
Choreographer and Director
of Contemporary and Creative
Dance. Ying Shi, a longtime
associate, will take charge of
the traditional repertoire.
Chen left the troupe a legacy of
more than 70 dances. The group
has an ambitious schedule
planned for spring 2022,
including the New York premiere
of a contemporary program
called Awakening, which will
feature Chen’s final creations.
“If I can keep on reviving
Nai-Ni’s work and organizing
in such a way that people
can see it, then I will be very
happy,” Chiang says. •
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