Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company The Bridge Virtual Dance Institute, Free One-Hour Company Classes on Zoom Open to All Dancers at an Intermediate to Advanced Level, Featuring Guest Artists: Andrew Pacho Flow and Zoe Rabinowitz

For the week of 9/28, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company’s The Bridge Virtual Dance Institute of boundary-breaking dance experiences will feature two new experiences for the participants. Interested dancers can join the class by registering on Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company’s website: http://nainichen.org/company-class.
 
The Bridge Class schedule are as follows:
Week of 9/28/2020
Monday        Greta Campo (Kinetic Spiral)
Tuesday        Andrew Pacho (Flow)
Wednesday   Nai-Ni Chen (Kinetic Spiral)
Thursday      Yuka Notsuka (Kinetic Spiral)
Friday           Zoe Rabinowitz (Contemporary-YSDT)

As a virtual dance institute, The Bridge will invite world renowned as well as up and coming dancers and choreographer to come to guest teach the class.  Advanced/Intermediate level professional or pre-professional dancers who are looking to explore beyond their own boundaries and looking for new dance experiences are encouraged to participate.  The core program is based on Nai-Ni Chen’s Kinetic Spiral, which is a cross-cultural dance vocabulary that integrates the Chinese martial arts philosophy in TaiChi with contemporary dance practices she studied in America.  Guest artists will cover a wide range of folk and classical dance styles.

Andrew Pacho created FLOW method for  his ANTI-GRAVITY dance company in 1990, a professional dance and gymnastics company, to help the performers maintain healthy joints and muscles while meeting the demands of the choreography. FLOW is a mixture of Gymnastics, Ballet, Graham, Horton, Gyrotonics,  and Yoga techniques.  FLOW starts by sitting on a sturdy chair, gently working through the full range of motion for every joint, muscle, and vertebra, creating heat and improved circulation to allow for greater flexibility and strength.  The class will then gradually speed up the movements to prepare for dance or rehearsal.  FLOW exercises can be modified for 15, 30 , 45, or 60 minutes segments.

YSDT’s master classes offer an environment of technical and artistic exploration for dancers of all levels.  The floor-based warm up draws on anatomic principles, pilates, and yoga to strengthen and warm the body in preparation for movement, which includes improvisational exercises and repertory phrases to enhance participants’ access to their own authentic voice.

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company has established a new dance institute through Zoom, The Bridge.  The Institute’s aim is to bring together dancers, choreographers and directors around the world to experience the master teachers of color whose practices are embedded in the community and are focused on advancing the art of dance that transform the personal, environmental and metaphysical spaces. 

Greta Campo is the Associate Artistic Director of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, She began her dance training in her native Milan at the Carcano Theater, where she was first introduced to Martha Graham’s work. She performed with the Martha Graham Dance Company in their 2012 New York Season and later on their international tour. Greta is a recipient of the 2016 Rising Star Award from the Fini Dance Festival.
 
Andrew Pacho toured with Nai-Ni Chen company to China in 2015 as a resident instructor. He started his career as a USA National level competitor in Gymnastics then trained to become a professional dancer. Highlights include working with Mark Morris, Donald Byrd Company, Philodanco, Doug Elkins, Lar Lubovich, Micheal Swain, Graciella Daniele, Bill Irwin, Gillian Lynne, Peter Sellars, Graham Murphy, Harold Prince, Jerry Mitchel, Robert Lepage as well as several productions on Broadway, Metropolitan Opera, NYCO, Radio City Music Hall. He was also in the Woody Allen film Everyone says I love you and many TV Commercials. Mr. Pacho co-founded the Gymnastics dance company ANTI-GRAVITY, working as co-director and choreographer. Mr. Pacho also has a long-standing working relationship with Lois Greenfield, renowned Dance photographer.
 
Yuka Notsuka was born in Fukuoka, Japan, is a member of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company. She began her Ballet training in her hometown at age four. Later she broadened her training to include Jazz and Tap. Later Yuka moved to New York City to further pursue her career as a dancer. In 2015 she entered the Ailey School as a scholarship student. She performed in Ailey Spirit Gala Concert at Lincoln Center choreographed by Tracy Inman (Co-Director, The Ailey School) and Robert Battle (Artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater). Yuka joined the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company in 2017. She also has been in training and served as Teaching Assistant at the Luigi Jazz Dance Center under Francis J. Roach.
 
Zoe Rabinowitz, Associate Artistic Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (YSDT), graduated from the Walnut Hill School for the Arts before earning her BFA in Dance from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program. In addition to her work as a founding member and principal performer with YSDT, Zoe has performed with companies such as INSPIRIT, JoAnna Mendl Shaw/Equus Projects, MBDance, Nia Love/Blacksmith’s Daughter, Urban Bush Women, and Anne Zuerner. Her own work for stage and film has been presented at festivals nationally and abroad in Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Mexico, and South Korea.  As a teaching artist, Zoe has offered workshops and master classes in Germany, Japan, Jordan, Palestine, South Korea, and throughout the U.S.
 
About Nai-Ni Chen
Hailed as a Spiritual Choreographer by Dance Magazine and recipient of multiple choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Nai-Ni Chen has been creating dances professionally for over thirty years in the United States. She has built a diverse repertory of over 80 original works and toured to major venues in the US and international contemporary dance festivals in 12 countries. She will be teaching her signature technique KINETIC SPIRAL which is a blend of the dynamic, ever-evolving spirit of contemporary dance and the grace and splendor of the Asian artistic traditions.
 
Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
A blossom of color, energy and motion, “like endlessly proliferating forces of cosmic energy,” says the New York Times.
 
About the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
Bringing the dynamic freedom of American modern dance together with the elegant splendor of Asian art, the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company is one of the most visible Asian American dance companies in America. Ms. Chen’s unique choreography transports audiences beyond cultural boundaries to the common ground between tradition and innovation, discipline and freedom, and form and spirit. Since its inception in 1988, the company has earned a broad base of public support and has toured extensively to major performing arts centers throughout more than thirty states. Presented by some of the most prestigious concert halls in the United States, from the Joyce Theater in New York to the Ordway Center in Minnesota and the Cerritos Center in California, the Company has mounted more than twenty national tours and nine tours abroad. Ms. Chen’s work has been presented by such acclaimed international festivals as the Silesian International Contemporary Dance Festival and the Konfrontations International Dance Festival, both in Poland, the Chang Mu International Arts Festival in Korea and the Meet in Beijing International Arts Festival. The Company was also honored by a distinctive grant award from both the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities and the Department of State to represent the United States in a seven-city tour arranged by the Tamaulipas International Arts Festival in Mexico. Also, the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company has the unique honor of having received more than fifteen awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and numerous Citations of Excellence and grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In addition to its extensive season of touring and performing, the company has developed Arts in Education residency programs in school districts to bring culture and arts into educational settings. It’s colorful and engaging in-school assembly program “The Art of Chinese Dance” has been presented in hundreds of schools in NJ, NY, CT and PA, reaching hundreds of thousands of youth. The Company is currently in-residence at New Jersey City University and assisting NJCU in the development of a new BFA in Dance. For additional Company information, visit www.nainichen.org; write to Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, P.O. Box 1121, Fort Lee, NJ 07024; or call (800) 650-0246.