This weekend's performance by Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery is a special one. The work, "Tracings", will be revived and performed at 6:00 p.m. in the Kogod Courtyard of the museum, free and open to the public - but please arrive early. (We have a arranged a private tour prior to the performance.)
Dana's mother, who appeared in the 2003 premiere of "Tracings" at the Kennedy Center, will return to Washington, DC for a cameo in this Saturday's show. The piece is inspired by Dana's own family's immigration to America, and the experience of Korean-Americans, and immigrants in general, as they left their mother country and settled in a new land.
From Dance Informa:
"Burgess also details some of the inspirations for movement content in, and aesthetics of, the work. He describes scars on his mother’s hands, which he would ask about when he was a child. In an as age-appropriate way as possible, she told Burgess about working on pineapple plantations when she first came to America (Hawaii, more specifically). The hands thus became a focus in the movement. He recounts how remembering these scars, and the stories she told him about how she got them, was an “ah-ha” moment for him in creating Tracings. His mother, visual artist Anna Burgess, will have an actual physical presence in the work, as well; she will appear as a special guest performer."Read the article in its full glory at Dance Informa here.
