MISSION
I have always been interested in making dance/theatrical stories that couple layers of laughter with a loud knock to the heart. I’m interested in finding mundane qualities in performances that are also interesting, authentic and real to both the performers and the audience. In finding honest and meaningful voices in my work, I often proceed to ask myself, “How can you make dance more like dogs at play? Interactive, energized, risky, playful, social and with an underlying structure which is felt and known rather than imposed by the intellect?”
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR/ CHOREOGRAPHER
Jenni Hong, made in Taiwan, is the artistic director and choreographer of Jenni Hong Dance, founded in 2005. Jenni received her M.A. from Columbia University and had been dancing professionally in NYC for the last 25 years before moving to the Bay Area. Influenced by contact improvisation, her multicultural background and interdisciplinary experiences in dance and social psychology, Jenni creates physical and theatrical work that seeks to peel the layers of artifice to reveal what lies beneath.
Her choreography has been presented in Taiwan, Italy and the United States. In New York City, Jenni's work has been seen at DanceNow/NYC, Danspace Project's “Food for Thought” Series, Joyce SoHo, Dance Space Center/Dance New Amsterdam, The Puffin Room, Dixon Place, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!), Tisch School of the Arts/New York University, "the Featured Length Independent Choreographer (FLIC) Fest" at Irondale Center, "Take Roots" Series at Green Space, "Collaborations in Dance Festival" and "Split Bill" Series at Triskelion Arts, Space on White, "Wassaic Dance Project Festival" in Wassaic, NY, Waterside Dance Festival, "Dance at Socrates" at Socrates Sculpture Park, "EMOVES-13"at Harlem Stage, Movement Research Fall Festival 2018 at Danspace Project, Center for Performance Research, and NimbusPRESENTS: OFFLINE+ at BAM Fisher Theater.
In Taiwan, Jenni's evening-length work, mach.com, was most recently presented by the 15th Crown Festival in Taipei. Jenni has worked and collaborated with artists including Kirstie Simson, Gibney Dance, Jana Hicks, Nathan Trice, Dance Forum Taipei, A Moving Sound, Glen Fittin, Janine DeVal Gay, Guido Tuveri, Akiko Furukawa, Taipei Dance Circle, Delirious Dances/Edisa Weeks, Erica Essner Perormance Co-Op, David Appel, Elise Knudson, Aviva Geismar, among others. Jenni was a guest teacher at Tisch, NYU as part of the Artist in Residency Festival with Gibney Dance from 2005-2009. Since 2005, she has been teaching Yoga and movement awareness to survivors of domestic violence, seniors, LGBT and HIV/AIDS communities in New York City. Jenni is a RYT-500 hour certified Yoga teacher from Om Yoga Center in New York. She teaches yoga at various studios in New York and recently at Mulenberg College in PA. In 2019-2020, Jenni gave movement awareness and improvisation classes to at-risk teens at the Door in NYC. She graduated cum laude from Clark University and received her MA in psychology from Columbia University.
Jenni is the grant recipient of the Manhattan Community Arts Fund (MCAF) from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2012. She was part of the EMOVES-13 mentorship program at Harlem Stage. Jenni is the recipient of the Triskelion Arts Space Subsidy Program made possible with support from the Andew W. Melon Foundation since 2013. From 2017-2019, Jenni Hong Dance was awarded the CUNY Dance Initiative Residency twice where she created work and taught dance partnering workshops at Joffrey Dance Center and CUNY Queensborough Community College.
Jenni is currently on dance faculty at San Jose State University. Since moving to California in 2022, Jenni’s choreography have been presented by ODC Theater in San Francisco and Bay Area Independent Chinese Dancers in Oakland . She was invited to be part of the “Encounters over 60” project with Sara Rudner via Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, and now continues to engage in weekly movement explorations with Sara Rudner, Risa Jaroslow, Wendy Rogers, Diane Frank and many seasoned dance artists in the Bay Area. Jenni most recently collaborated with interdisciplinary artist Martha Sakellarou and performed to an hour-long improvised performance at Palo Alto Arts Center in June 2024.