PERIOD FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
2023-24
DTSBDC ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Dana Tai Soon Burgess
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Christine Doyle
ASSISTANT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Felipe O. Moltedo
PHOTOGRAPHY
Francois Achan, John B Photo, Jeff Mallet, Mary Noble Ours, Sueraya Shaheen, Don Stahl, Lauren Victor, Jeff Watts, xmbphotography
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Felipe O. Moltedo
ART COVER
Photo: Don Stahl. ©
The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS)
2745 Arizona Ave, NW
Washignton, DC, 20016
ADDRESS WEB
www.dtsbdc.org www.slantpodcast.com
@dtsbdc
As our 31st season comes to a close, I reflect on the transformative power of dance – an artform that transcends cultural and socio-economic barriers. This year our season was dedicated to the Asian American experience. Our dances brought light to the diversity of our APA stories. We not only created two new major productions, but we also revisited our expansive three-decades-long repertoire. We presented works at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and in major American museums around the country. We brought dance to senior communities and schools. Our work reached over 7000 audience members in the Washington, DC area and an additional 1600 nationally through 30 performances, three national tours, five educational residencies, and hundreds of ongoing dance classes for youth. Through our performances and educational programs, we experienced pure jubilance and brought a better understanding to our audiences and students of the reality of our shared histories and experiences.
We are grateful to our funders as well as to our ever expanding audiences who support our programs.
It is a joy to direct DTSBDC and I look forward to our upcoming 2024-2025 season. We will present two new world premieres and also reset and perform multiple repertory works. These will be performed in both theatrical, as well as museum settings. It is exciting to begin work on our 32nd season and to expand our reach.
Thank you for believing in the importance of dance in our society; its ability to build empathy by sharing stories through the universal language of movement. I’m looking forward to seeing you at a performance in the near future!
Warmest,
Dana Tai Soon Burgess
Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company (DTSBDC) creates and performs modern dance works that explore intersectional identities – the flowing together of diverse perspectives, histories, and traditions that result in shared audience understanding.
Now in its 31st season, DTSBDC is a culturally diverse company that performs modern dances that uplift, inspire, and bring new insights to seasoned dance lovers and new audiences alike.
The premier modern dance company in the Washington, DC metropolitan area,
DTSBDC also tours throughout the United States and around the world. The Washington Post described the Company as “not only a Washington prize, but a national dance treasure,” and the Washington City Paper’s 2023 and 2024 Reader Poll named DTSBDC as the “Best Dance Company of DC”.
DTSBDC is the national leader in the movement to collaborate with and perform at visual arts institutions. The Company is uniquely able to nurture and serve both dance and visual arts audiences. It creates new works inspired by cuttingedge exhibitions,
hosts open rehearsals, offers educational programming, and through its touring provides opportunities for audiences to experience dance as well as understand – and witness – its creative process.
Washington City Paper’s 2023 and 2024
Reader Poll named DTSBDC as the “Best Dance Company of DC”
In 2016, DTSBDC was named the Smithsonian Institution’s firstever resident dance company where the Company worked for seven years with the National Portrait Gallery curators and historians to create and perform dances inspired by the exhibitions. Other visual arts museums and partnerships include the Arts Club of Washington, the National Gallery of Art, the Kreeger Museum, the Noguchi Museum, and the University of New Mexico Art Museum among others. In 2024, the Company began its participation in the year-long John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Social
Community Partnership Program.
DTSBDC has also collaborated with other organizations in Washington, DC and beyond including the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the DC Mayor’s Office of Asian Pacific Islander Americans, DC Public Library System, DC Public Schools, NASA, the U.S. State Department, and more.
DTSBDC has been presented extensively, including at the Asia Society, Arena Stage, the Baltimore Museum of Art, La MaMa, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, the Korean Cultural Center, NYU Skirball Center for
the Performing Arts, the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, Towson University, the United Nations, the University of New Mexico, Washington University, as well as at the White House at the invitation of President and First Lady Michelle Obama.
As a U.S. State Department cultural representative, DTSBDC has toured internationally to five continents and over 30 countries including Cambodia, China, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, India, Israel, Jordan, Latvia, Mexico, Mongolia, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela, to name a few.
SINCE ITS BEGINNING, DTSBDC RECOGNIZED THAT PARTNERSHIPS AND COLLABORATIONS WOULD BE SIGNIFICANT TO CREATING THE CHOREOGRAPHIES, PERFORMANCES, AND EDUCATION PROGRAMS THEY ENVISIONED.
Most recently Burgess served a seven-year term as the Smithsonian’s first-ever choreographerin-residence working with DTSBDC and performing at the National Portrait Gallery. This position helped DTSBDC raise its local and national standing and expand its work with and within visual arts organizations. The company developed four new collaborations in 2023-2024 with the Noguchi Museum and the LongHouse Reserve in New York, Cranbrook Art Museum in Michigan, and the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland.
DTSBDC continued its three-year partnership with the University of New Mexico Art Museum and its one-year Social Impact Partnership with the Kennedy Center. Other indispensable
partners to DTSBDC include: Georgetown Day School - an independent coeducational PK12 school, and School Without Walls High School - a public magnet DC public school, which are major parts of DTSBDC’s dance education program; Maryland Youth Ballet which provides DTSBDC with rehearsal space; the DC Public Library System which provides opportunities for DTSBDC to speak on modern dance and perform; The Villages Community, an organization helping older adults live independently and safely in their own homes throughout DC, which provides opportunities for dancers to perform; and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities has been providing essential support to DTSBDC throughout its history.
DTSBDC produced the company’s 30 Anniversary Celebration’s sold-out performance (November 30, 2023) at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. The company performed dances from its repertory created during the past 30 years including: Transformations, Fractures, Mandala, A Tribute to Marian Anderson Duet, and Surroundings: A Tribute to Maya Lin. An audience of 500 people attended, and the company received a standing ovation. This was a major milestone for the company and a rare triumph for the Washington, DC arts scene, where the longevity of modern dance companies is rare.
DTSBDC choreographed two major new dances, Seeds of Toil: Three stories of Asian American Resistance and Resilience and Landscapes. This dance trilogy toured to New Mexico, as well as to three locations in and around New York City, and Michigan.
In April 2024 The Kennedy Center commissioned and presented the world premiere of Seeds of Toil: Three Stories of Asian American Resistance and Resilience to a sold out house. The performance, which received a standing ovation, was part of DTSBDC’s role as a 2024 Kennedy Center Social Impact Partner.
Seeds of Toil focuses on the confluence of three agricultural histories of Asian Americans: Korean American plantation workers in Hawaii at the turn of the last century; the importance of the collaboration of
Filipino and Latinx organizers and migrant farmworkers in California in the 1960s; and the impact of WWII internment on the Japanese agricultural communities of California in the 1940s. The work reflects sociopolitical exclusionary practices, the rise of Anti-Asian violence, coalition building between Latinx and APIA communities, and the universality of humanity’s need to find a safe place to call home. The dance is performed with projections of historic images that relate to the three overarching stories.
DTSBDC provided an educational booklet to each audience member and to be used in schools. It includes Burgess’s notes explaining his background and what to expect from the dance. It also described the historical background for each of the three stories and a suggested reading list.
In June 2024 DTSBDC premiered a sitespecific choreography, Landscapes, at the Noguchi Museum located in Queens, NY. This commissioned dance, performed in the museum’s open-air galleries, is a tribute to the artist Toshiko Takaezu and an abstract, kinesthetic response to the “Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within” exhibit. The Company performed six times, free of charge. The dance is an immersive work inspired by Takaezu’s love of nature, form, texture, and color. Landscapes imagines the dancers as extensions of her artistry with the dance as a moving, organic montage in Takaezu’s honor and all informed by her connection to Hawaii, her reverence for nature, and her perspective as an American of Okinawan ancestry. Burgess created this tribute to Takaezu because his mother, Anna Kang Burgess, was one of the first four Hawaiian women including Takaezu who came to the mainland to attend the Cranbrook Academy of Art in the early 1950’s. Burgess’s mother and father, who also attended Cranbrook, maintained a lifelong friendship with her. Fittingly, Isamu Noguchi was a family friend whose work inspired his interest in the confluence of art and dance.
DTSBDC presented excerpts from the Company’s repertory and a duet from Landscapes at The LongHouse Reserve, a sixteen-acre sculpture garden and museum in East Hampton, NY. Burgess and Carrie Barratt, the director of the LongHouse Reserve, told vignettes about the dances throughout the performance. DTSBDC plans to tour Landscapes at venues across the U.S.
DTSBDC performed a reprisal of We Choose to Go to the Moon at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) on March 7, 2024. On March 2, 2024, the dance company held an open rehearsal and master class for dance students of the Baltimore School for the Arts at the museum from 2-4 p.m. The performance was related to the BMA’s impressive “Moon Dust (Apollo 17)”, a light installation by visual artist Spencer Finch that consists of 150 individual chandeliers with 417 lights, a scientifically precise representation of the chemical composition of moon dust as gathered during the Apollo 17 mission.
DTSBDC performed A Tribute to Marian Anderson Excerpted Duet No. 1. as part of the Kennedy Center Gala Performance “10,000 Dreams” in the Opera House, a celebration of Asian-American choreographers.
DTSBDC reprised Surroundings: A Tribute to Maya Lin, Transformations, and Seeds of Toil: Three stories of Asian American Resistance and Resilience at the Hillwood Estates in DC. The two performances and rehearsals were offered at a “pay what you can ticket price” and were open to the public.
The Company performed and taught at the National Dance Institute (NDI) in Albuquerque, NM. NDI provides free dance classes and programming in every, city, pueblo, and community in New Mexico. They have a special focus on Latinx and Indigenous students.
DTSBDC performed a selection of excerpts from its repertory at the Arts Club of Washington in celebration of the announcement of its 2024-2025 season.
The Company performed at the new Korean Cultural Center Theater in NYC. The program focused on its Korean American repertoire. The works included on the program were Becoming American, the story of a Korean adoptee’s struggles to acculturate to American society, Hyphen, an exploration of the diversity of Asian American identities, and Leaving Pusan, the immigration story of Burgess’s grandmother from Korea to the Hawaiian sugar cane and pineapple plantations at the turn of the last century.
DTSBDC performed Landscapes as part of a comprehensive dance residency at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Here the Company also taught and lectured both high school and college art students.
Senior company member and production assistant Felipe Oyarzun Moltedo was elevated to the new position of Assistant Artistic Director. He now focuses on developing the artistic season with Burgess and Managing Director Christine Doyle, and interfacing with collaborative artists, and venues. Felipe is also responsible for resetting the company’s extensive repertory and for the design of residencies, educational booklets, performance programs, and social media.
During the 31st season we began to focus on the importance of the dance company’s legacy to the field of art. This season we added an Archivist to the Leadership of the company. Laura McDonald assumed the role of organizing the
company’s repertoire and maintaining its archive of photos, videos, and press clippings.
This season we added African American pianist Dana Nicole Scott and soprano Millicent Scarlett to the company roster. Our deep belief that dance and live music should be experienced together led us to creating these new positions. Dana
and Millicent are excellent awardwinning musicians who collaborate with our artistic team and perform with the company.
The Company continues to run the Lower, Middle, and Upper School dance programs at Georgetown Day School (GDS).
DTSBDC taught weekly dance classes and also gave two presentations for the GDS lower and middle school students – one being a shared concert with students. DTSBDC is the curricular advisor for the School Without Walls Dance Program and provides masterclasses and hosts its end-of-school year dance performance. DTSBDC uses unique tools to enhance
students’ understanding and appreciation for diverse identities, backgrounds, and cultures. These include Burgess’s dance history book Milestones in Dance History published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis, and his memoir, Chino and the Dance of the Butterfly , published by UNM Press about his journey as an openly gay, Korean-American artist who grew up in a Hispanic and Indigenous community. Free copies of each are provided to the School Without Walls senior dance students each semester.
“ I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT WHAT WAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR OUR STUDENTS, AND COULDN’T HAVE HAD A BETTER PARTNER.
-LIZ SAL GANEK,
ARTISTIC
DIRECTOR NDI
MENTORSHIP
Mentorship is an important aspect of DTSBDC. The Company continues with Emerging Movements: Young Choreographers of Color which offers the opportunity to those interested in choreography to have works reviewed by Dana Tai Soon Burgess and invited studio audiences. The current program includes four DTSBDC dancers, one of whom is Black, two Asian Americans, and the other a Latino member of the LGBTQIA+ community. The Company also provides two internships to high school dance students each year. Interns take dance classes and assist with dance productions.
Ifinished my first year dancing with the Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company and am beyond grateful for all my experiences. From Dana, I learned what a healthy environment and relationships in a dance company should look and feel like. I was struck by the immediate sense of community I felt upon the first rehearsal and couldn’t help but admire all the company members as hardworking role models. This season the company performed on beautiful stages including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which was a dream of mine, but also in unconventional spaces such as the Kreeger Museum and the Noguchi Museum. Being in a space, surrounded by art as you create art with your body, forms a special synergy within the space, connecting you, the artwork, and the audience. The thoughtfulness and research that went into the dance Landscapes was apparent and brought the audience into a meditative world at the Noguchi Museum. This piece was an entirely new experience as I danced around sculptures, encapsulating the energy. It’s interesting to be so close to spectators that you can see what details they are looking at with visible reactions.
The company proved to not only be mentors to me but also the younger generation through residencies. The summer marked the adventure of flying to Albuquerque, New Mexico. As someone who never flew on a plane before Fall 2022, touring was a great joy, minus when dealing with motion sickness. It’s exciting to be in a new place
and have a mixed schedule of rehearsals, teaching, exploring the town, eating at restaurants, and performances. Seeing the company’s impact on students at the National Dance Institute of Albuquerque was inspiring.
“The company proved to not only be mentors to me but also the younger generation through residencies.”
The students expressed a fountain of gratitude and noted the respect and community we fostered within the company as they shadowed the same sentiment. As dancers and teachers, you know you are making an impact, but hearing and seeing it firsthand is something special, even if the interaction is brief. It’s been a pleasure learning Dana’s unique movement and how he tells stories. This season was filled with performances that fascinated audiences as seen through numerous standing ovations. I can’t wait to continue my dance journey with the company and share more stories next year!
30 Total Performances
2 World Premieres
DTSBDC employed 24 creative and artistic staff, including arts administrators, dance educators, and production personnel to deliver educational programs and performances.
3 National Tours
Georgetown Day School = 423 students each week throughout the school year, 32 classes per week over each school year
National Dance Institute = 100 students, 20 classes over a two week residency
Cranbrook Art Museum = 100 students, 4 classes over a week-long residency
DTSBDC Interns = 2
Maryland Youth Ballet = 52 students, 2 classes per week over each school year
Baltimore Museum of Art master class = 25 students, 1 master class
School Without Walls = 34 students, 6 classes over each school year
Communications is a key component to DTSBDC’s connection with its communities. The Company enhances its storytelling through dance and education by reaching people online. We continued to strengthen our strategic communications and outreach plans with the support of public relations specialist Patch Canada and through activities that include traditional and social media, inclusive of website interfacing with partner institutions, blogs, Facebook, Vimeo, Instagram, and DTSBDC’s YouTube channel. DTSBDC has 29.9K followers on Instagram, 9.7K on Facebook and Slantpodcast’s Instagram has 4894 followers
Our Constant Contact account has 1838 subscribers. The Company continued to fine-tune its new website, dtsbdc.org, to include more information not only about its performances but also its educational work in the DC community and took steps to increase its visibility by improving Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
This year the company invested in a new customer relationship management software, Little Green Light. The CRM allows the company to track funders and potential funders while interfacing with its accounting software and Constant Contact.
DTSBDC continued to use The Slant Podcast, which can be found at slantpodcast.com as well as on all major podcast platforms, to enhance its education program. Burgess hosts the podcast, during which he interviews Asian-American creatives to explore the impact of being Asian American on their work. The goal of the podcast is to help combat
Asian American racism by highlighting the diversity of our APA communities. Slantpodcast has become an important APA cultural archive. 2024 guests include Danah Bella, Genie Ghim, Wilma B. Consul, Adi Shankar, JonJon and Isa Briones, Luyen Chou, Christin Arthur and Joan Ayap, and Eunice Lau
DTSBDC has been and continues to work to be inclusive, encourage diversity, ensure equity, and provide access for those in our organization, our audiences, those who participate in our education programs, and partner organizations. The Company includes a diverse group of eleven dancers,
six full-time staff members, and a board of directors and advisory board. DTSBDC is led by Founding Artistic Director - Burgess, in tandem with Managing DirectorChristine Doyle and Assistant Artistic Director - Felipe Oyarzun Moltedo.
The diverse 13-member working Board of Directors and 14-member Advisory Board share knowledge of and passion for dance and arts for social change and bring a wide range of professional skills and experience to the organization. The Board of Directors meets quarterly and provides crucial management and financial support as DTSBDC continues to grow. Planning
committees meet monthly, and each director serves on at least one of the following communities: executive, finance, development, event planning, and communications and marketing. A key strength of the board is fundraising. All board members donate or raise at least $6,000 each year and provide contacts to family foundations and high-net-worth individuals. Board members, advisory board members and regular donors help identify and
recruit new board members.
Board members share knowledge of and passion for dance and arts for social change.
DTSBDC has grown steadily each year and remains financially stable and healthy. We continue to build our future by expanding our
season including Kennedy Center appearances, and residencies in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and beyond. This will strengthen the company’s ability to raise new funding and continue to build the Company’s local and national presence, which has long been a goal of the company. The reserve fund will continue to be held at a 3-month level which is within national standards.
DTSBDC continues its commitment to being inclusive, encouraging diversity, ensuring equity, and providing access for those in our organization, our audiences, those who participate in our education programs, and partner organizations. This is embedded in our mission and drives our creative energies.
DTSBDC defines diversity as the characteristics and attributes that make each of us unique, which includes race, national origin, disability, age, gender identity, and cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Equity involves working together to eliminate barriers that prevent the participation of all people and communities in learning about and participating in modern dance. DTSBDC is examining the underlying causes of disparities within our society and strives to address and overcome them through our performances, workshops, presentations, and education programs.
DTSBDC cultivates inclusion through an environment where people feel supported and listened to and can do their personal best. We develop cultural competence through conversations among our diverse group of dancers. Externally, it is our mission and responsibility to present dance works and teach dance that tells stories about the need for inclusion in our country and how the lack of it needs to change.
DTSBDC strives to provide accessibility to our performances and educational programs not just physically, but also in consideration of economic, geographic, demographic, and cultural barriers. We work to ensure that our arts programs are accessible and transformative for all by removing barriers between our performances and the audience. The Company is compliant with the Americans for Disabilities Act. Performances are free at most venues and offered at reduced pricing at theater venues.
Part of DTSBDC’s internal work on equity is that our Equity Committee discusses its performance season offerings twice a year. The Equity Committee includes dancers, staff, board members, and audience members of diverse perspectives.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the following corporations, foundations, goverment agencies, and individuals who supported Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company during our 23-24 season.
$51,000-150,000
DC Commision on the Arts and Humanities
$20,000-50,000
Georgetown Day School*
The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
Patch Canada
March Forth Foundation
The National Endowment for the Arts
Philip L. Graham Fund
$19,000- 5,000
The Share Fund
Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts
Dwight Stuart Youth Fund
Mary Eccles
Fulbright Scholars
Cary Fuller
Elizabeth Harter
JBG Smith
Ellen Kwatnoski
Maryland Youth Ballet*
Microsoft
Morningstar Foundation
Katia Norri
Jan and Seth Tievsky
Heinz and Liselotte Nehring Stiftung Foundation
$4,000-500
Anonymous (3)
John Ashford
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Ian Burgess
Michael Caplin
Alan Cariaso
Kay Casstevens
Cherry Blossom Giving Circle
Claudia de Colstoun-Werebe
Bianca DeLille
Jameson Freeman and Dana Burgess
Susan Gigli
Sergio Herrera and Kelly Southall
Wayne Hickory
Celia Hoke
Nicole Hollander
Erick Hosaka
Jill and Bill Hudock
Rebecca Klemm
Bonnie Kogod
Richard Kwatnoski
Marcia Lim
Barbara and Robert Liotta
Elizabeth McCallum
Laura McDonald
Kelly Minton
Elvi Moore
Judith Viggers Nordin
Dr. Susan Ohnmacht
Mark Ohnmacht
Eser Ozdeger
Tom Pallas
Stacey Perelman
Young-Key Kim and Bertrand Renaud
Sheri and Robert Rosenfeld
Stuart Ross and Patricia Devine
Teresa Saavedra
Eric San Juan and Jack Davis
Ben Sanders
Marian and Neel Saxena
Scout Properties
Leigh Slaughter
Steve Slaughter
Peter and Judith Storandt
Aaron Tievsky and Frank Delaney
Every contribution makes a significant difference. Together, we can make our 2025 season the most impactful yet. To make a contribution please scan the QR code below.
Leadership
Dana Tai Soon Burgess, Founding
Artistic Director
Christine Doyle, Managing Director
Felipe Oyarzun Moltedo, Assistant Artistic Director
Staff
Bianca DeLille, Development Director
Patch Canada, Public Relations Specialist
Jan Tievsky, Educational Principal
Joan Ayap, Georgetown Day School Teacher
William Robinson, Georgetown Day
School Teacher and Production Assistant
Aleny Serna, Georgetown Day School Teacher
Baylee Wong, Georgetown Day
School Teacher
Isel Perez, Accountant
Electra Hurwood, Intern
Charlie Meisler, Intern
Artists
Anne Sidney, Rehearsal Director
Sarah Halzack, Assistant Rehearsal Director
Carl Gudenius, Lighting Designer
Sigrid Johannesdottïr, Costume Designer
Millicent Scarlett, Resident Musician
Dana Nicole Scott, Resident Musician
Lauren Victor, Resident Photographer
2024 DTSBDC Dancers
Natasha Ames
Joan Ayap
Elias Brzezinski
Tomas Fischer
Trevor Frantz
Felipe Oyarzun Moltedo
Yvonne Faith Russell
Justin Rustle
Aleny Serna
Baylee Wong
William Robinson, Apprentice
Board of Directors
Kelly Moss Southall, President
Jan Tievsky, Vice President
Mary Eccles, Secretary
Jameson Freeman
Susan Gigli
Nicole Hollander
Erick Hosaka, Treasurer
Bonnie Kogod
Ellen Boyers Kwatnoski
Marcia Lim
Leigh Adams Slaughter
Dana Tai Soon Burgess (Ex-Officio)
Biance DeLille (Ex-Officio)
Advisory Board
Shahab Albahar
Kay Casstevens
Josue Castilleja
Mario Castillo
Diane Dragaud
Sara Gay Forden
Sarah Halzack
Joshua Kaufman
Mark Ohnmacht
Steve Oshana
Anatol Steck
Lauren Victor
Yang-Ro Yoon
Steven Zatarga
Organizational Mentors
Patch Canada
Michael Kaiser
