Dana Tai Soon Burgess

For more than a decade, the award-winning Burgess has created dances that freshly synthesize Eastern and Western aesthetics. He was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to an Irish-Scottish American father and a Korean American mother. He was trained by Tim Wengerd and Judith Bennahum. He studied the Michio Ito technique, developed by the pioneering Asian American choreographer. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from George Washington University, where he now teaches as a professor of dance. He has also taught at the Hamburg Ballet School and King Sejong University, Korea, and conducted master classes for Xiamen Dance Company, the Beijing Contemporary Dance Company, China, University of Lima, Peru and The Latvian National School of Dance, to name a few. Diverse elements inspire his choreography: culturally specific dance forms, martial arts, the visual arts, and personal journeys to Asia, Latin America, South America, the Middle East and Europe.

With work presented internationally and nationally, Burgess’ awards include the 2003 Pola Nirenska Award, the Mayor's Arts Award in 1994 and 2004 and DC Metro Dance Awards in 2001, 2002, 2003. He was an American Cultural Specialist for the State Department in 2000, 2003 and in 2004 and has received four Fellowships for choreography from the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities. In 2003, the company commemorated the 100th anniversary of Korean immigration to the US with a Smithsonian/Kennedy Center-commissioned evening-length work entitled Tracings. This work is based on Burgess’ personal family Korean American family history. The Washington Post called it the "...fruit of a decade of delicate artistry." In March 2006, he premieres a new full evening work entitled "Images from the Embers" through Washington Performing Arts Society at Lisner Auditorium. This work tours through 2008 starting in Krakow, Poland.



Artistic Director, Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company