Arts & Entertainment
Two decades of dance
Gay-helmed company plans bevy of anniversary performances
Dana Tai Soon Burgess says building a foundation of donors who believe in his work has been essential to his success. (Photo courtesy DTSB)
The Dana Tai Soon Burgess dance company kicks off its 20th anniversary season next week with several performances.
On April 5-6, the outfit will perform several works over two nights at the Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre (800 21st Street, NW) on the George Washington University campus.
Among the works are:
- “Becoming American” — which explores the experience of a Korean child uprooted from her birthplace when she is adopted by Caucasian American parents. The lead dancer is Katia Chupashko whose personal story is told in the work.
- “Hyphen” — which looks at the experience of being a “hyphenated” American (as in Korean-American). It features the full company.
- “Khaybet” — a solo dance performed by associate artistic director Connie Fink which depicts a woman at the end of her life. Burgess participated in a cultural exchange which led to the work in Pakistan.
- “Fractures” — a spare work depicting a love triangle to be performed by Yeonjin Cho, Kelly Southall and Sarah Halzack.
Tickets are $25 for general admission but discounts are available. Details are at dtsbco.com.
Burgess, who’s openly gay, says it’s exciting to see his eponymous company reach 20 years.
“Often we associate dance with being something very ephemeral and once it’s done, it’s gone, but it really attests to the staying power of our company and the work we do and the aesthetic we’ve developed to still be here,” he says. “Our community really supports us and that’s tantamount for an arts organization to feel we have a place and a home and we feel that.”
Though Burgess’s work isn’t LGBT specific, four of the 11 in his company are openly LGBT. While other gay arts companies, such as Ganymede Arts, have either closed or are struggling, how has Burgess kept going despite the tough economy?
“There are several ways an organization like ours can grow even within those confines,” he says. “When you’re producing work of high quality and individuals are really taken by that work, then they want to get involved if you ask them. If there’s enough of a structure in place for them to be a supporter and to feel part of an organization, they will. It’s a lot of work … you also have to realize ways to make even very specific themes, like this piece about being a Korean adoptee, reach out and have meaning to a larger group. There’s a universality that must reach out to all audience members so while they might think, ‘Wow, that’s specific, I’m not a Korean adoptee,’ it still says something about diversity and inclusion and they can feel an empathy and beauty in the work they can relate to … there are lots of approaches you can take to make niche work successful.”
When Burgess, who grew up in an art-rich household in Santa Fe, started the company just two years after moving to Washington, there were just seven dancers working mostly on a volunteer basis. The company now has a different structure altogether and Burgess, who last danced himself in about 2008, works full time in the field; he also teaches dance at George Washington.
He says he doesn’t particularly miss performing himself because in his coaching he’s “constantly moving.”
“I feel completely connected to the field in a way that’s perhaps more three dimensional than it was 20 years ago,” he says.
The group also plans a May 18 anniversary performance at the National Portrait Gallery, a spring tour of the Middle East sponsored by the U.S. State Department, a September perfornance also at the Marvin Theatre with other works including the gay-themed “Charlie Chan and the Mystery of Love,” and a private reception for donors at the Arts Club of Washington.
The Washington Post once called Burgess the region’s “leading dance artist, consistently following his own path and producing distinctive, well-considered works.”
The Petal Release Party and Drag Show was held at Spark Social on Friday, July 31. Performers included Tiara-Missou, Labianna and Darcy de la Cuadra.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Celebrity News
Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon
AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.
The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.
“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.
Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.
Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”
Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.
Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.
Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.
“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”
Theater
Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth
First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’
Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.
A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.
White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”
Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.
“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?
REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.
BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?
WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.
I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.
These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.
Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.
BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?
WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.
I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].
BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?
WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.
BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?
WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.
Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.
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