Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company Performs at Midwest Arts XPO

Name: Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company Performs at Midwest Arts XPO
Start: 2025-09-15T19:30:00-05:00
End: 2025-09-15T20:30:00-05:00
Location: Baird Center

Schedule

Mon Sep 15 2025 at 07:30 pm to 08:30 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Baird Center | Milwaukee, WI

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 announced today that they will perform at Midwest Arts XPO on Monday September 15 2025. For more information on the conference please visit here.
At Midwest Arts XPO Nai-Ni Chen will introduce new audiences to the company's blend of Chinese tradition and modern innovation.
About Midwest Arts XPO
The Midwest Arts XPO (MAX) is an arts conference created by Heartland Performing Arts Inc. a nonprofit organization since June 28 2022 which brings together arts professionals to encourage innovation create educational opportunities strengthen artist touring relationships and support arts advocacy throughout the central United States. The organization was founded by agents artists and state consortia leaders from Illinois Indiana lowa Michigan Minnesota North Dakota Ohio South Dakota Wisconsin and beyond.
About the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company is a rare Asian American woman led professional touring company with programs for educational settings community organizations and mainstage venues. The Company's mission is to be a premier provider of innovative cultural experiences that reflect the inspiring hope and energy of the immigrant’s journey. It was founded with the vision that the journey of crossing cultures and adapting to a new home provides endless inspirations and opportunities for creative expressions that can enrich the human experience. Each one of the company’s work is aimed to increase the visibility of the struggle triumph despair and joy of this experience. The Company's productions provide authentic experiences and bring forth issues of identity authenticity and equality. The Company’s worldwide touring is represented by Red Shell Management led by Edward Schoelwer.
Choreography is developed with dancers from diverse backgrounds and each rehearsal is an immersive boundary-crossing journey that contributes to the creative process under the direction of the choreographers. Our repertory of Nai-Ni Chen's original works bridge the grace and power of Asian arts and American dynamism which incorporated her broad influences. The company also preserves a variety of festive dances from different regions of China choreographed by guest immigrant artists bearing their tradition.
The Company began to tour in the early 1990s originally on the East Coast and later internationally. The dance company is multi-racial and multi-national and has collaborated with a wide range of artists from different disciplines and cultures. Musical collaborators range from New Music jazz to classical they include Joan La Barbara The Chinese Music Ensemble of NY Jason Kao Hwang Huang Ruo Kenji Bunch Tan Dun Glen Velez and most recently the Ahn Trio. Award-winning designers and visual artists such as Myung Hee Cho Jay Moorthy AC Hickox and costume designer Karen Young. These collaborations provided us the opportunity to develop innovative productions that carry the timeless essence of the tradition.
In addition to domestic touring the company has also performed at international festivals in Mexico Canada British Virgin Islands Guatemala Germany Poland Russia Lithuania South Korea and China with support from Fund for Mutual Understanding The President’s Committee for the Arts Arts International and the State Department of the United States. Ms. Chen has received multiple Choreographer’s Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and from New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her work has also been commissioned by the Joyce Theater Foundation the Lincoln Center Institute the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Dancing in the Streets the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and New Jersey Performing Art Center.
Prominent Institutions including the Lincoln Center Institute the Joyce Theater Dancing in the Streets NJ Ballet Ballet Met Dancing Wheels and Baraka Sele at NJPAC all have commissioned notable works. The most recent tour “A Quest for Freedom” developed with the Ahn Trio premiered at the Philadelphia NextMove Festival. The Company is currently in residence at New Jersey City University’s A. Harry Moore for students with disabilities and in Elizabeth School #26 a school of mostly immigrant children.
For more information on Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company please visit www.nainichen.org.
Acknowledgement
Programs of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company have been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/ Department of State a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts the New Jersey Cultural Trust The New Jersey Division of Tourism the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation DanceNYC Dance Advancement Fund the Hyde and Watson Foundation E.J. Grassman Trust The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey New Music USA the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation American Dance Abroad the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ Cultural Exchange Fund supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation PSEG Proskauer WAC Lighting and the Glow Foundation. WQXR is a media partner of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company.
About Nai-Ni Chen
Nai-Ni Chen (1959-2021) was a legendary choreographer who worked in NJ/NY area professionally for over thirty years since coming to the US in 1982. She has built a diverse repertoire of over 80 original works and toured to major venues in the US and international festivals in 12 countries around the world. A cross-cultural choreographer who aims to bring audience across the cultural boundaries she has developed unique movement and choreographic styles that reflect the grace and splendor of the Chinese cultural traditions she studied in Taiwan since youth and the dynamic spirit of modern dance that she acquired in New York from luminaries such as Mary Anthony Bertram Ross Doris Rudko and Patricia Rowe.
Nai-Ni Chen has received multiple Choreographer Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She has been a principal affiliate of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and was a resident artist of the Harlem School of the Arts. Her contribution to the immigrant cultural experience has been honored by OCA and the International Institute. Commissions have come from the Joyce Theater Foundation the Lincoln Center Institute the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Towson University Dancing in the Streets New Jersey Ballet Ballet Met and the Cleveland Dancing Wheels. Nai-Ni is currently in residence in New Jersey City University creating a new dance program for the university in collaboration with the Joffrey Ballet School as well as pioneering a program with the University’s Laboratory School for children with multiple disabilities.