Table Dish: Dance

Join Asian American Arts Alliance (A4) for the latest workshop of our professional development series, Table Dish, to help further the careers of AAPI in dance.

Table Dish: Dance is a career development roundtable event where professionals in the field of dance will meet with emerging and mid-career professionals to “dish” career advice and lead candid discussions about tips to succeed in the industry.

The career roundtable aims to provide facilitators and participants the opportunity to network and build relationships with peers and mentors, offer a genuine way for AAPI community members to give back, engage arts leaders and professionals in a meaningful way, and help build a pipeline of AAPI arts leaders, role models, and experts.

Table Dish: Dance will be composed of three 30-minute networking sessions. Individual participants rotate every 30 minutes to meet with a total of three different leaders. After the breakout sessions, we’ll come together to share with one another.

Participating Leaders:

• Phil Chan, choreographer, director, as well as co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface & President of Gold Standard Arts Foundation
• Brinda Guha, a Bessie-nominated Kathak dancer and co-founder of Kalamandir Dance Company, as well as the senior producing coordinator at Dance/NYC.
• Rumi Oyama, a Broadway choreographer and performer (Allegiance) as well as a producer and co-founder of Kuma Dakko productions
• Amy Santos, dancer, curator, and manager of the Battery Dance Festival
• Michael Bryan Wang, current Broadway performer/swing and assistant dance captain (Moulin Rouge)
• Yue Yin, choreographer, founder, and artistic director of YY Dance Company and the creator of FoCo Technique™

Read bios of participating leaders below.

There is a $15 nonrefundable fee to register and hold your spot. If the fee presents an obstacle to your participation or if you have any accessibility needs, please reach out to programs@aaartsalliance.org at least one week before the event. We will try our best to make accommodations.

Registration is capped at 30 attendees.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A PORTFOLIO REVIEW SESSION.

Phil Chan
Phil Chan is a co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface and the president of the Gold Standard Arts Foundation. He is a graduate of Carleton College and an alumnus of the Ailey School. He has held fellowships with Dance/USA, Drexel University, Jacob’s Pillow, Harvard University, the Manhattan School of Music, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, NYU, and the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art in Paris. As a writer, he is the author of Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing between Intention and Impact and Banishing Orientalism and has served as the executive editor for FLATT Magazine and contributed to Dance Europe Magazine, Dance Magazine, Dance Australia, and HuffPost, and currently serves on the Advisory Board of Dance Magazine. He served multiple years on the National Endowment for the Arts dance panel and Asian American Arts Alliance’s Jadin Wong Award panel. He was a Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor of Dance at Carleton College, and was named a Next 50 Arts Leader by the Kennedy Center. His recent projects include directing “Madama Butterfly” for Boston Lyric Opera (garnering “Best of 2023” in The Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Broadway World), and staging a newly reimagined “La Bayadere” for Indiana University. His dances are currently in the repertory at Ballet West and Oakland Ballet, where he serves as resident choreographer.

Brinda Guha
Brinda Guha identifies as a non-disabled, caste-privileged, cisgender and queer South-Asian American, and is a Bessie-nominated Kathak dancer for over 20 years. During training and performing for years in the Kathak (Malabika Guha) & Manipuri (Kalavati+ Bimbavati Devi) dance disciplines, as well as Flamenco (Carmen de las Cuevas; Dionisia Garcia) and Contemporary Fusion vocabularies, she co-founded Kalamandir Dance Company in 2010. She’s choreographed for many national stages and self-produced original feature-length dance productions which earned her artist residencies at Dixon Place (2018) and Dancewave (2019) to continue to develop work. Now, she is represented by CESD Talent Agency and is pursuing artistic direction, performance and arts education. She trains in Kathak, Manipuri and Contemporary. Her dream of having art meet activism was realized when she created WISE FRUIT NYC, a seasonal live arts installment (est 2017) dedicated to the feminine divine and honoring select women-led organizations, and she is the lead researcher and curator of NCCAkron’s How People Move People Podcast, Season 4. For her day job, she works as the senior producing coordinator for a dance service organization based in the values of JEI: Dance/NYC. www.brindaguha.com

Rumi Oyama
Born and raised in Hiroshima, Japan, Rumi graduated from Chuo University with a law degree. She has since merged her legal background with her artistic talents in the US, working as an actress, choreographer, director, and writer. Rumi is an original cast member of Broadway’s Allegiance, where she played Mrs. Tanaka. She also choreographed and performed in the Off-Broadway musical Sayonara, winning the Fred and Adele Astaire Award for Outstanding Female Dancer. Her choreography received nominations from the BroadwayWorld Regional Awards for Allegiance (Aratani Theater, 2018) and The King and I (La Mirada Theater, 2023). One of her favorite film credits is Running For Grace (now on Amazon Prime) as Miss Hanabusa, alongside Matt Dillon and Jim Caviezel. In 2021, she founded Kuma Dakko Productions, where she wrote and directed her first film, Spirit Box, which won the Outstanding Dramatic Digital Series award at the Oscar Micheaux Film Festival. Rumi is currently developing several projects, including Finding Your Voice, an uplifting comedy that may be adapted into a film or musical. www.kumadakkoproductions.com

Amy Santos
Amy Santos has dedicated her life to the NYC arts community, both on stage and behind the scenes. As an arts manager, she has toured worldwide with Merce Cunningham, Lucinda Childs, and Meredith Monk. She currently curates the Battery Dance Festival. As a performer, she has worked with Stanley Love Performance Group, C. Eule Dance, The Kathak Ensemble, and others. Amy is also a professional musician, and enjoys singing with Heather Christian and Gaia Music Collective, and playing upright bass for her original music project, Sunshine Nights. As a level 2 authorized instructor in the Ashtanga Yoga tradition, Amy spent over 15 years directing and teaching her own full time Mysore program in Brooklyn.

Michael Bryan Wang
Michael is a Chinese-American artist and educator, originally from New Jersey. He graduated with a BFA in dance from Marymount Manhattan College. Michael is currently swing and assistant dance captain of Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway. He made his Broadway debut in Beetlejuice the Musical. Prior to Broadway, Michael performed in the hit immersive theater production, Sleep No More, and worked with dance companies such as ZviDance, 10 Hairy Legs, and BODYTRAFFIC. Other notable credits include Hercules at the Delacorte Theater, Expo 2020 Dubai, and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. In addition to teaching dance and theater, Michael is a certified pilates mat instructor, and loves sharing his knowledge of anatomy, biomechanics, and cross training to help others move through their lives with more ease and less pain.

Yue Yin
Yue Yin is a choreographer, founder and artistic director of YY Dance Company and the creator of FoCo Technique™. She began her training in Chinese classical and folk dance in Shanghai, China at the prestigious Shanghai Dance Academy and completed her MFA in dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2008. In 2018, Yin founded YYDC, a non-profit contemporary dance company dedicated to the teaching, production and performance of her original choreographic work. Yin is the creator of her signature FoCo Technique™ which is a unique contemporary form of dance movement rooted in Chinese classical and folk dance melded with the complexity and diverse influences of the immigrant experience. Overall the form grows from Yin’s own blended international background and a deep appreciation for precision, contrast, fluidity and musicality. Yue Yin was the recipient of the 2021 Harkness Promise Award. This prestigious award recognizes her innovation in choreography and education. She was the winner of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 2015 International Commissioning Project, winner of the 2015 BalletX Choreographic Fellowship, and winner of Northwest Dance Project’s 5th Annual Pretty Creatives International Choreographic Competition in 2013. Yin’s work has been commissioned from acclaimed organizations such as Gibney Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, Oregon Ballet Theater, NW Dance Project, BalletMet, Boston Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, Limon Dance Company, Alberta Ballet, Balletto Teatro di Torino, Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, Juilliard School for Dance, USC Kaufman School of Dance, Tisch School of The Arts, Princeton and more.

Accessibility:
Elevator in the building. If you have any questions or accessibility needs, please email programs@aaartsalliance.org.

Recordings:
This event will not be recorded.

Refund Policy:
All sales are final. No shows will not be issued a refund. We will do our best to match you up with your selected professionals but we cannot guarantee specific meetings.