photo credit: Sueraya Shaheen
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, DC’s preeminent modern dance company. DTSBDC’s projects began in DC’s Chinatown.
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, an appointment he uses to promote international cultural dialogue through “the global language of dance.” Burgess has been awarded three Fulbright Senior scholarships for dance and recently received two prestigious awards – the Selma Jeanne Cohen Dance Lecture Award and the Aaron Stein Memorial Award.
In 2016, Burgess was named the Smithsonian Institution’s first-ever Choreographer-in-Residence. From 2016-2023 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. In 2003, Burgess was one of only three artists featured in the Smithsonian Institution’s “A Korean American Century” – an exhibition highlighting the history and achievements of Korean Americans in the US. He was also highlighted in “Dancing the Dream,” the Smithsonian’s first exhibition on American dance. Three portraits of Burgess are part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian and his family archive resides in the American History Museum. He has created works for The National Gallery of Art, The Noguchi Museum, The National Museum of Asian Art, The National Building Museum, The Kreeger Museum, The Baltimore Museum of Art, and The UNM Art Museum to name a few.
Burgess and DTSBDC have received numerous awards and acclamations including the Outstanding Emerging Artist at the 12th Annual Mayor Arts Award (1994), the Mayor’s Arts Award for Excellence (2005), seven Metro D.C. Dance Awards, and the Pola Nirenska Award which celebrates trailblazers and leaders of the dance community. Burgess received the Paul Ré Peace Prize for bridging communities around the globe through choreography. He has served as a Mayoral appointed commissioner for the DC Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander Americans and the DC 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 Milestones in Dance History by Routledge/Francis&Taylor. He is the host of Slantpodcast.com which focuses on the Asian American arts experience.