Kickstarter

Dear friends,

We've learned so much from our performances and experiences in Asia and cannot thank you enough for making this tour possible.

In addition to our supportive Kickstarter Backers, there are a number of people who made this tour a success. We'd like to give a Special Thanks to:

First and foremost, Sarabeth Berman for suggesting this tour in the first place and for all her help along the way.

The BeijingDance / LDTX Staff and Dancers for welcoming us into their new home.

Jason Meeks for orchestrating our four performances at the World Expo, and Allison, Peter and the USA Pavilion technical crew for making us look good.

All the staff at the Guangdong Modern Dance Festival, especially Lap, Violin, Volans, Godzilla and Anther.

Willy Tsao for being a wonderful host in Beijing and Guangzhou.

Victor and Mandy from Y-Space in Hong Kong for continuing to encourage collaboration and dialogue between Hong Kong artists and foreign artists.

William Lane and the Hell Hot Festival in Hong Kong.

Although this is our last Kickstarter Update, we hope you'll keep in touch. Feel free to visit www.TzeChunDance.com for upcoming shows and a link to our Facebook fan page, where you can find a full photo album from the tour.

You can also download music by Dan's Gameboy band Datalore (featured in "Up and Up") at http://www.danieliglesia.com/datalore. One of the tracks is attached below!

Signing off with love from NYC,
TCDC

Dear friends,

We just finished our LAST show in Asia!

On Saturday, we had our full-evening show at Y-Space Theater in Kowloon and then returned to the Y-Space studio on Sunday to lead a 4-hour technique class and improvisation workshop. Last night we performed at the beautiful Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wan Chai as part of the Hell Hot Music Festival.

Below is a flyer for our Y-Space show and video excerpts of "Up and Up" from our show in Beijing at the BeijingDance / LDTX Theater. Enjoy!

Love,
TCDC

* Up and Up is a new performance piece that explores art perception and classification between popular and highbrow. It combines dancers with live video capture and playback to sample and multiply the dancer's image. This creates a uniquely fused interaction between the previously distinct media of dance, video, and sound.

Up and Up
Performed by Tony Bordonaro, Elisa Davis, Eileen Farrell, and Ilana Webber
Created by Tze Chun and Daniel Iglesia
Music by Daniel Iglesia
Lighting Design by Godzilla Tan
Full-length: 23 minutes

Dear friends,

We just finished up our stay at the 7th Annual Guangdong Modern Dance Festival (GMDF) in Guangzhou, China.

Our program coordinator and dear friend Sarabeth Berman whisked us through a whirlwind week of dance performances, master-classes, workshops, and food.

We are slowly learning about the Modern Dance culture in China, and have been fascinated by the enthusiasm, support and creativity we have been surrounded by here.

At the Festival, our mornings were spent taking dance technique classes with teachers from around the world and teaching our own workshops. The teachers were so amazing at expressing meaning through movement that we barely noticed the classes were in Chinese!

After hearty lunches of soup dumplings, Cantonese cuisine, or conveyor-belt sushi, we would head to rehearsal and tech.

In the afternoons we attended shows at the Guangdong Song and Dance Theater and then had a short break before watching the evening shows at some of Guangzhou’s largest music halls and performance venues.

Our own performance yesterday went very well, thanks to Godzilla Tan and the rest of the Festival technical staff, who worked late into the evening the night before to help with our multi-media component. We have never encountered a tech crew so invested in making sure our work is realized to its full potential.

Some of the artists we had that honor of watching and performing with this past week include:
Dafi Altabeb (Israel), Nimrod Freed (Israel), BejingDance / LDTX (China), Kasai Mitsutake (Japan), Kim Nam-Jin (Korea), Willy Tsao (China), Luo Fan (China), City Contemporary Dance Company (Hong Kong), Guangdong Modern Dance Company (China), Yu Cheng-Chieh (China), Janis Claxton (UK), Lui Bin (China), Dua Space Dance Theater (Malaysia), David Liu (USA), Lionel Popkin (USA), and Tiger Princess Dance Projects (Canada).

Willy Tsao, the Artistic Director of the Festival, has a tradition of taking the day’s performers out to a family-style Chinese dinner after the evening show. Last night was no exception, and we had a traditional Cantonese feast with all of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company dancers, the artists from our own program, and the technical directors and choreographers. There were many toasts made with the local Chinese brew, and cheers of “Gan Bei!” (Bottoms Up!).

Photo of TCDC teaching a workshop below!

Love,
TCDC

Dear friends,

We just finished up the Shanghai leg of our tour!

After taking an overnight train from Beijing, we arrived in Shanghai and had a day to explore the city before heading into the Expo.

The World Expo was absolutely awe-inspiring in scale. On average, half a million people attend the Expo each day!

We performed "Up and Up" to Dan's live singing and Gameboy orchestration in front of thousands of people at each of our four shows.

Thankfully, our USA Pavilion performer passes gave us priority access to the Expo and all the pavilions, so we were able to see pavilions from all over the world without having to wait in the notorious 3-6 (!) hour lines for each country.

Video clips will be posted soon, but here are some photos of the Expo and our performances in the meantime!

Love,
TCDC

Last night (Sunday the 18th) Tze Chun Dance Company performed a full evening program as part of the opening-weekend Housewarming Party for the BeijingDance / LDTX Theater. We were TimeOut Beijing’s “Critic's Pick” for this weekend, and had photos and write-ups in the Beijinger and the Global Times as well!

After 28 hours in transit, the company arrived in Beijing late Saturday evening. We headed straight to the theater on Sunday morning and spent the day rehearsing, lighting, and performing our show. The BeijingDance / LDTX crew and staff were incredibly welcoming and, in classic Chinese fashion, fed us large amounts of delicious food throughout the day.

Although we were all jet-lagged from the 12-hour time difference, the performances went better than we could have ever imagined. It was our first time performing “Parlour Games” with a limited cast (Tze, Eileen, Elisa, Ilana and Tony) and we also presented the world premiere of “Up and Up” with our resident bearded composer Daniel Iglesia crafting all the multi-media elements live on stage.

Today, we took a “day off” by hiking the Great Wall for four hours, covering twenty-two watchtowers and countless stone steps. Tomorrow, the company returns to the studio, where we will be taking company class with the BeijingDance / LDTX dancers, as well as rehearsing for our upcoming four shows at the Shanghai World Expo!

Thanks so much for making this incredible experience possible.

Love,
TCDC