Performing in the 2017 Green Show on Friday, August 4 and Sunday, August 6
This is their second season at the OSF Green Show
Intermixing of classical Khmer and Western music, dance, poetry, and song
Charya Burt's Biography:
Charya Burt is a master teacher, dancer, and choreographer based in Northern California. A graduate and former dance faculty member of the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, Charya's training began in 1982 under the direction of the foremost dance masters of Cambodia. As a member of Cambodia’s royal dance troupe, Charya toured nationally and internationally. After immigrating to Northern California in 1993, Charya has been performing throughout the United States, including the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Jacob’s Pillow Festival at U.C.L.A., and thirteen times as a featured performer at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. Charya has also conducted dance workshops at several colleges and universities around the country including the California State University Summer Arts Program at California State University, Long Beach. She received a B. A., Cum Laude, in Liberal Studies from Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California.
Charya has been awarded numerous grants including three from the Irvine Dance in California Program, three from the CCI Investing in the Artist, the Choreographer in Mentorship Exchange, and two from the Creative Work Fund. Her original dance pieces include Forever My Ancestors (2006), Blue Roses (2007), Of Spirits Intertwined (2009), Intersections Through Time (2010), Caressing Nostalgia (2011), and Blossoming Antiquities: Rodin's Encounter with the Celestial Dancers of Cambodia Phase One, (2013). With Larry Reed, Charya developed The Rebirth of Aspara, an experimental dance/shadow theatre work, (2013). Through the CounterPULSE Artist Residency Commissioning Program in San Francisco, Charya created Silenced honoring the life of Cambodian pop icon Ros Sereysothea.
Charya Burt’s newest work, Heavenly Garden, premiered at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival in 2016. A recipient of the Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Individual Performance, Charya's mission is to continue to preserve her art form and to create new works rooted in tradition that forge innovation. Charya is currently the artist-in-residence for the Cultural Dance Group in San Jose and artistic director of Charya Burt Cambodian Dance, based in Windsor, California. www.charyaburt.com
Alexis Alrich's Biography:
Alexis Alrich is an American composer and pianist living in Beijing, China. Her style has been called “Neo-Impressionism,” influenced by Impressionist music, West Coast Minimalism and Asian music. She studied first at the New England Conservatory of Music and then with composer Lou Harrison, who instilled in her a love of percussion and world music.
Ms. Alrich’s piece for erhu (Chinese violin) and orchestra, Song of Everlasting Regret, was commissioned and premiered by the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra in November 2016. She has received numerous grants and commissions for orchestral and chamber music in the U.S., China, Hong Kong and Europe. Dame Evelyn Glennie, percussionist, recorded her Marimba Concerto with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong in June 2013.
Charya Burt Cambodian Dance on Community
In a world where our respective communities seem to be more and more divided, Crossfade demonstrates the artistic power and of what can come about when diverse people and cultures meet. Charya and Alexis have developed a strong bond based on a shared reverence for their respective classical traditions. As these traditions react together, the result, though unpredictable even to the artists, is always inspired by universal ideals of beauty.
www.charyaburt.com