Charya Burt — Winter 2014 Artist in Residence
About Charya BurtCharya Burt is a master teacher, dancer, and choreographer based in Northern California. Her training began in 1982 under the direction of the foremost dance masters of Cambodia. Charya has performed throughout the USA, including the Kennedy Center and 13 times as a featured performer at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. A recipient of the Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Individual Performance, Charya has been awarded numerous grants for her innovative new works including three from both the Irvine Dance in California Program and CCI Investing in Artists, and twice from the Creative Work Fund. |
About SilencedMAR 14-15, FRI-SAT at 8PM RSVP on facebook Silenced, Charya Burt’s latest work honors the life of Cambodian pop icon Ros Serey Sothea mixing 1960’s Cambodian pop music with compositions for guitar by Alexis Alrich and video design by Olivia Tin. Rooted in tradition, the choreography feels Cambodian but is a modern exploration of movement and artistic expression.
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MAR 14-15, FRI-SAT at 8PM
MAR 20-23, THU-SAT at 8PM, SUN at 3PM
Silenced is a new dance piece based on the true story of Cambodia’s most beloved pop singer in the 1990s, Ros Serey Sothea. As a child Sothea grew up very poor in Cambodiaʼs rural countryside. Because of her powerful voice and perseverance against all odds, Sothea rose to the top becoming Cambodiaʼs most famous pop singer. King Norodom Sihanouk deemed her a national treasure and gave her the title, “The Golden Voice.” When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 Cambodia was turned upside down. Sothea was among the approximately 90 percent of Cambodian artists who perished between 1975 – 1979. Despite this unimaginable tragedy Sotheaʼs electrifying voice still lives in the hearts of Cambodians around the world.
Charya will use Classical Cambodian dance vocabulary as a foundation to re-envision classical gestures and movements intertwining them with pre-recorded songs from Sothea designed to evoke the vibrancy of her life during the Golden Age of Cambodian pop music. The choreography will reflect the three distinct stages of Sothea’s life. To illuminate the innocence of her early life, modified classical gestures synchronized with different floor patterns will accompany Sothea’s slow, nostalgic songs, First Night and This is the Story of My Love. Sothea then transforms from quiet simplicity into a beloved pop icon with Charya singing her irrepressible I’m Sixteen using contemporary choreography to evoke the fresh excitement of the times. New musical compositions for guitar by Alexis Alrich are used for the final stage of Sotheaʼs life during the Khmer Rouge Regime. Charya will attempt to capture a sense of her life’s struggle as she becomes trapped in a prison without walls and eventually dies. Serving as a thematic backdrop, video imagery designed by Olivia Ting will be interspersed throughout the entire piece.
Alexis Alrich: (Composer)Alexis Alrich Alexis Alrich is an American composer living in Hong Kong. Her style has been called “California Impressionism” and is influenced by French Impressionist music, West Coast Minimalism and Asian music. Dame Evelyn Glennie recorded her Marimba Concerto with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong in June 2013. Island of the Blue Dolphins, for orchestra and narrator, was performed by the Santa Barbara Symphony and was recorded on a CD called “Magical Tunes and Marvelous Tales.” Ms. Alrich has collaborated frequently with Cambodian choreographer and dancer Charya Burt, most recently in Blossoming Antiquities which opened the 2013 San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. She has also written dance scores for Choreographers KT Nelson of ODC/San Francisco and Robert Moses. |
Olivia Ting (Video Designer)Olivia Ting is interested in the role of digital technology in the fabric of contemporary lives rearranging how our memories are collected and formulated in our consciousness. Her most recent work (premiered 2013) was a collaboration with Lenora Lee Dance, who was an Artistic in Residence of San Francisco deYoung Museum. Olivia has been nominated two times for Isadora Duncun Award for Visual Design. In addition to theater work, Olivia continues to work as a graphic designer for cultural institutions such as San Francisco Dance Center, San Francisco Performances, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum and Oakland Museum of California.
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Nahuel Bronzini (Guitarist)Nahuel Bronzini is an Argentinean guitarist and composer currently based in San Francisco. After completing a degree in jazz at the Escuela de Música Contemporánea in Buenos Aires, he moved to the Bay Area in 2010 to study classical guitar at the San Francisco Conservatory. Bronzini’s original music explores themes of nostalgia and longing, navigating sonorities from both the contemporary classical world as well as jazz and other pop culture related music. He is also currently involved in several music projects with bay area artists taking the role of performer arranger and/or producer.
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