Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company at Centenary Stage Company in Hackettstown NJ in Warren County

A blossom of color, energy and motion. The dances of Nai-Ni Chen fuse the dynamic freedom of American modern dance with the grace and splendor of Asian art. The Company's productions take the audience beyond cultural boundaries to where tradition meets innovation and freedom arises from discipline.Choreographer/Dancer Nai-Ni Chen is an artist whose work defies categorization, as she is continually working on new ideas from influences around the world.

"like endlessly proliferating forces of cosmic energy,"
New York Times

Drawing on elements from the flowing lines of Chinese calligraphy to the thundering motion of the martial arts, Nai-Ni Chen is one of the few established Asian- American choreographers who melds the dynamic freedom of American modern dance with the stoic discipline of the Chinese classical arts. Chen received intensive training in the disciplines of Peking Opera, martial arts, ballet, modern dance, music, and visual arts at the Chinese Cultural University. The dances of Nai-Ni Chen and the company fuse the dynamic freedom of American modern dance with the grace and splendor of Asian art. The Company's productions are designed to take the audience beyond cultural boundaries to where tradition meets innovation and freedom arises from discipline.

The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company has received more than twelve awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and numerous Citations of Excellence and grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In the First China International Dance Festival in Kunming, Yunan, the China Dance Association presented to the Company its most prestigious honor for companies not based in China, the Golden Lotus Award. With over seven international tours, Ms. Chen’s work has been presented by such acclaimed international festivals as the Silesian International Contemporary Dance Festival and the Konfrontations International Dance Festival, the Chang Mu International Arts Festival in Korea and the China International Dance Festival.

The Centenary Stage Company has found its new home with construction the Carol and David Lackland Center (located at 715 Grand Ave, Hackettstown), completed in August, 2010. With a 22,000-square-foot performance space, the facility is the most sophisticated performing arts venues in northwest New Jersey. The center includes a new state-of-the-art 500-seat theatre (Sitnik Theater), a black box theater (The Edith Bolte Kutz ’42 Theater), a dance studio, scene shop, a costume shop, green room and dressing rooms. In addition to housing the theatre, the 68K square foot Lackland Center is home to a variety of cultural activity, and including WNTI, the College's listener-supported public radio station, CCTV, Centenary's Comcast-licensed television studio, and gallery space for visual artists.

Named in honor of Carol Burgess Lackland, A Centenary graduate (Class of 1954), and her husband, David A. Lackland, a Centenary College Trustee, The David and Carol Lackland Center, has been designed to enrich student life and bring new cultural opportunities to northwest New Jersey. ...more (including photos, progress reports, and 'Tour Lackland with Carl')

Dance Fest Flex Pass     $35.00
Includes Lustig, Moe-Tion Dance Theater, Nai Chen and Dorfman plus classes. Available until the first Dance Fest Flex Pass event has occured.

Individual Tickets (Dance Fest events except Tommy Tune) are:
   $15 adult
   $10 child under 12

Secure Online Tickets/Ordering

Performances at CSC are made possible (and affordable) through the generous support of The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, and CSC sponsors and members, including Premiere Sponsors Fulton Bank of New Jersey (formerly Skylands Community Bank) and Heath Village Retirement Community, as well as Hackettstown Regional Medical Center, Mama's Café Baci, and Centenary Stage Company Members and Sponsors.