Muna Tseng
MUNA TSENG is a choreographer acclaimed for her seamless fusion of Asian aesthetics with Western cross performance ideas and a dancer celebrated for her eloquence and passionate precision. She has created, choreographed over 40 works and performed in over 15 countries including the USA, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea, England, Scotland, Bosnia, Israel, Greece, Estonia, Sweden and Switzerland.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Muna began her dance training with Magda and Gertrude Hanova, disciples of Mary Wigman in Vancouver Canada, and choreographed and performed there before arriving in New York in 1978 to join Jean Erdman’s Theater of the Open Eye. Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times noted: “an exquisite dancer, absolutely breathtaking. A choreographer with something important to say.” Tseng inherited a legacy of Erdman’s roles in modern classics dating from the 1940’s, danced to live music by seminal composers John Cage, Lou Harrison, Teiji Ito and in the classics of world literature and mythology of Erdman’s husband Joseph Campbell.
Accolades include a Bessies New York Dance and Performance Award, two fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts, two fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and numerous commissioning grants from New York State Council on the Arts. Honors include “Best Choreography” for “The Silver River” in Philadelphia’s 2000 theater season, “Distinguished Service in the Arts” from New York City Council President Andrew Stein, and “Artist of National Merit” from The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. In 2019, Tseng was honored by Visual AIDS at their 14th Annual Vanguard Awards & Spring Gala. In 2022, Dancespace Projects honored Muna as a Rebel Angel at their Annual Gala.
She has been on faculty at New York University, Douglas College at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts NJ, and founded and directed the Summer Dance Residency program at Queens College (City University of New York). Muna is invited to speak on panels and solo presentations talks at esteemed arts organizations and universities regarding contemporary dance and visual arts legacy preservation and creative archival practices.
Tseng served for 7 years on the Bessie: New York Dance and Performance Award selection committee. She was on the Board of Directors at Danspace Project, and on panels including New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Mid Atlantic Arts Council.
