Dana Tai Soon Burgess

Dana Tai Soon Burgess
Dana Tai Soon Burgess in Mongolia

Dana Tai Soon Burgess was born February 26, 1968 in Carmel, California. He is a performance artist, renowned choreographer, and cultural figure. As a prominent Korean American, he uses dance to explore Asian American identity and established two dance companies: Moving Forward Contemporary Asian American Dance Company and Moving Forward Asian American Youth Dance Program. The former was renamed in 2005 to Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co., and is the foremost contemporary dance company in the Washington, D.C. area. He also serves as a cultural envoy for the U.S. State Department, an appointment he has used to promote international cultural dialogue through "the language of dance". Throughout his career, Burgess has performed, taught, and choreographed all around the world.[1]

Contents

Early Life

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. He is descended from the first group of Korean immigrants to come to America. His 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.[2] They became Hawaiian plantation workers.

Education

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 Masters in Fine Arts in 1994. He also studied the Michio Ito technique in Washington, D.C.[1]

Career

In 1992, Burgess established the Moving Forward: Contemporary Asian American Dance Company which houses Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co. Additionally, he established the Moving Forward: Asian American Youth Dance Program, which was a summer program for Asian American youth. The program still operates under the name DTSB & Co. Asian American Youth Program. Feeling caught between different cultural worlds, Burgess invested a lot of his own money to fund the program as a way for youth to explore their Asian American heritage.[3]

His passion to teach extended outside his dance companies when he taught classes at the Kirov Academy of Ballet of Washington, DC, the Hamburg Ballet in Germany, the National Ballet of Peru, San Marcos University in Peru, Sejong University in Korea, and the Washington Ballet. Burgess' teaching career has also included George Mason University, Georgetown University and the University of Maryland. Burgess became Director of Georgetown University's dance program in 1994. He was offered a professorship at George Washington University in 2000, where he currently serves as Chair of the Department of Theatre & Dance.[4] Burgess also designed and oversaw a new, global distance and onsite learning MFA program for dance at the George Washington University.[5]

He has trained with notable dancers, such as Tim Wengerd and Judith Bennahum. In 1994 he received an award for Outstanding Emerging Artist at the 12th Annual Mayor Arts Award Ceremony. The Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co. dance company was awarded the Mayor's Award for Outstanding Artistic Excellence in 2005. Burgess was featured in ads for the "New 202" campaign produced by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.[6] He has completed two senior Fulbrights in dance and won seven Metro D.C. Dance Awards as well as the Pola Nirenska Award. He has been referred to as the "poet laureate of Washington dance".[4] His recent work has focused on the immigrant experience and cultural divides, which resulted in several of his performances being showcased on State Department sponsored tours around the world.[4]

He has received grants from the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities and the DC Community Humanities Council, as well as from major foundations and corporate sponsors. His work has been performed in numerous venues, including Dance Place, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Kennedy Center, La Mama, the United Nations headquarters, the Asia Society, and the Lincoln Center Out of Doors in New York City. Burgess' choreography has also been commissioned by Ballet Memphis and the Kennedy Center. His work "The Nightingale" toured to over 200 American cities. He has taught, lectured and toured around the world in countries such as Egypt, Israel, Korea, China, India, Mongolia, Venezuela, Germany, Latvia, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, Peru, and Cambodia, among others. He has also 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.[1]

Burgess during a public performance on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2002.

Burgess is featured in the "What is an Asian American?" exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in a work by artist Cindy Hwang.[7] 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.[8]

Burgess has retired from dancing due to a back injury, but is still teaching and choreographing.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co. and Moving Forward: Contemporary Asian American Dance Company records, Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University
  2. ^ Duk Hee Lee Murabayashi. "Korean Passengers Arriving in Honolulu 1903-1905". Resources for Research on Koreans in Hawaii. March, 2001. http://www.korean-studies.info/pdf/pass200a.pdf
  3. ^ Bale, Eric. "A Whale of an Effort". The Washington Post. August 2, 1993, p. B7.
  4. ^ a b c d Kaufman, Sarah. "Dana Tai Soon Burgess and 'Charlie Chan and the Mysteries of Love". The Washington Post. October 21, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/20/AR2010102006328.html.
  5. ^ Abrams, Amanda. " GW Launches Dance MFA Program". Washington City Paper. November 30, 2010. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/performance-and-dance/2010/11/30/gwu-launches-dance-mfa-program/.
  6. ^ D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities. "The New 202. Art 202 Blog. August 17, 2010. http://art202.com/2009/08/17/the-new-202/
  7. ^ Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program. "Korean American Centennial Celebration". The George Washington University" February 4, 2003. http://www.gwu.edu/~media/pressrelease.cfm?ann_id=4984

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