Reflections: Invited Choreographers Showcase

Dana Tai Soon Burgess

Dana Tai Soon Burgess is a leading American choreographer and cultural figure known worldwide as the “Diplomat of Dance.” In 1992, he founded the Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company (DTSBDC), Washington, D.C.’s preeminent modern dance company now in its 32nd season. The Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Sarah Kaufman says of Burgess, “Not only a Washington prize, but a national dance treasure.”

Burgess creates contemporary modern dance works that explore the joy, sorrow and beauty of the human experience. He has served as a Cultural Ambassador for the U.S. State Department for over two decades. Burgess has been awarded three Fulbright Senior scholarships for dance and the Selma Jeanne Cohen Dance Lecture Award.

In 2016, Burgess was named the Smithsonian Institution’s first-ever Choreographer-in-Residence. From 2016 to 2023, he created new works inspired by museum exhibitions, participated in public discussions about dance and art and designed educational programming. The exploration of dance and art is deeply rooted for Burgess. The son of two visual artists he has always approached the stage as a canvas, and the dancers as brush strokes. Burgess was one of only three artists featured in the Smithsonian Institution’s “A Korean American Century” (2013), an exhibition highlighting the history and achievements of Korean Americans in the United States. He was also highlighted in “Dancing the Dream,” (2013 to 2014) the Smithsonian’s first exhibition on American dance. Three portraits of Burgess are part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian. He has created works for The National Gallery of Art, The Noguchi Museum, The National Museum of Asian Art, The National Portrait Gallery and The UNM Art Museum, to name a few.

He has served as a Mayoral appointed commissioner for the D.C. Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander Americans and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Burgess is the author of Chino and the Dance of the Butterfly: A Memoir by University of New Mexico Press and the editor of and contributor to the dance history textbook Milestones in Dance History by Routledge/Francis & Taylor. He is the host of Slantpodcast.com which focuses on the Asian American arts experience.

Brandi Coleman

Brandi Coleman is an assistant professor in the Division of Dance at Southern Methodist University where she teaches Jump Rhythm® Technique, a jazz-rhythm-based movement approach that transforms the moving body into a rhythm-driven percussion instrument. She was a performing member, rehearsal director and associate artistic director of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project (JRJP), a Chicago-based dance company founded by Billy Siegenfeld. She received an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Excellence On Camera/Performer for her work in the Emmy Award-winning documentary, Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There, and has toured nationally and internationally with JRJP to Finland, Italy and Canada. As a teaching and creative artist, she has led more than forty choreographic and teaching residencies at universities nationwide and internationally. Her pedagogy and creative work honor the foundational and fundamental relationship between jazz music and jazz dance. Her choreography has been presented at venues across the United States and internationally at the Aratani Theatre (Los Angeles), Newport Jazz Festival (Newport), Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (Canada), Southern Theater (Minneapolis), Links Hall (Chicago), New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, River Center Theatre for the Performing Arts (Baton Rouge), the Winspear Opera House, Moody Performance Hall and the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts (Dallas), SUNY Brockport, James Madison University, Salve Regina University, Northwestern University, Stephens College, Carthage College, University of Dubuque, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Southern Methodist University.

Her writing, “Performing Gender: Disrupting Performance Norms for Women in Jazz Dance Through Gender-Inclusive, Human-Centric Choreography,” is included in the book Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century (University Press of Florida, 2022). She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Performing Arts: Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Doug Varone

Award-winning choreographer and director Doug Varone works in dance, theater, opera, film and fashion. He is a passionate educator and articulate advocate for dance. By any measure, his work is extraordinary for its emotional range, kinetic breadth and the many arenas in which he works. His New York City-based Doug Varone and Dancers has been commissioned and presented to critical acclaim by leading international venues for over three decades. Since its founding in 1986, Doug Varone and Dancers has commanded attention for its expansive vision, versatility, and technical prowess. On tour, the company has performed in more than 125 cities in forty-five states across the United States and in Europe, Asia, Canada and South America. Stages include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theater, Buenos Aires’ Teatro San Martin, the Venice Biennale, and at Jacob’s Pillow, American Dance Festival and Bates Dance Festival. Varone, his dancers, and designers have been honored with eleven New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Awards.

In the concert dance world, Varone has created a body of works globally. Commissions include the Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance Company, The Limón Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Rambert Dance Company (London), Martha Graham Dance Company, Dancemakers (Canada), Batsheva Dance Company (Israel), Bern Ballet (Switzerland) and An Creative (Japan), among others. In addition, his dances have been staged on more than 100 college and university programs around the country.

In opera, Doug Varone is in demand as both a director and choreographer. Among his four productions at the Metropolitan Opera are Salome with its Dance of the Seven Veils, the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, designed by David Hockney, and Hector Berloiz’s Les Troyens. He has staged multiple premieres and new productions for Minnesota Opera, Opera Colorado, Washington Opera, New York City Opera and Boston Lyric Opera, among others. His numerous theatre credits include choreography for Broadway, off-Broadway and regional theaters across the country. His choreography for the musical Murder Ballad at Manhattan Theater Club earned him a Lortel Award nomination. Recent projects include directing and choreographing MASTERVOICES production of Dido and Aeneas at New York’s City Center, starring Tony Award winners Kelli O’Hara and Victoria Clark, and staging Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio, Anthracite Fields for the Westminster Choir and the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

Varone received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Purchase College where he was awarded the President’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2007. Numerous honors and awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, an Obie Award (Lincoln Center’s Orpheus and Euridice), the Jerome Robbins Fellowship at the Bogliasco Institute in Italy, two individual Bessie Awards, a Doris Duke Artist Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Dance Guild.