Citizen (Excerpt)
Choreographer: Allen Chunhui Xing
Dancers: Jovannie Aranzamendi Nieves, Luis Jovanne Medina Velez, James Thomas Esquilin, Allen Chunhui Xing
Standing on the street, watching people passing through. They look different, dress different, and speak different. The facial expressions show people happy, sad, cold, positive and stressed…each of them has a story of their own lives. As citizens of a society, country, we are facing many different challenges. Challenges from the living environment, political environment, work… and most impactfully ourselves. As citizens of the society, we receive labels… labels of being a foreigner, immigrant, gay, white, black, Asian, poor, old, young, rich,……..people fight for the label they want, people fight for the label they don’t….we fight for the opportunities, we fight to conquer diseases, we fight for our lives. But what matters? What are YOU fighting for? Standing on the stage, after we share our stories and expose our inner selves, you see skins, muscles, bones lines, movement， weight shitting, sharing, supporting, we are human bodies. What labels do you actually see?
The inspiration for creating Citizen is the personal experience of my life in the USA. I have used my own stories and inserted other performers’ stories. Four dancers on stage, we tell our stories and remove the labels; we are dancers, dancers with different colors. Dancers have the same human body structures. What labels can you still see? Does color still matter?
2021 Singapore International Dance Festival Choreography Gold Award
2021 DC Choreography Dance Festival
2022 SpectorDance’s Choreographers Showcase
2022 Japan SAI International Dance Festival
2022 Orlando Contemporary Choreography Festival
2022 Battery Dance Festival, NYC
2022 Seoul Contemporary Ballet of Asia
2022Detroit Dance City Festival
2022 Festival De Movimiento Puerto Rico
2023 Finland International Dance Gala
2023 City Dance Festival International Edition
2023 Booking Dance Festival at Jazz Lincoln Center, NYC 2023