Chia-Ying Kao
visiting artist in residence
Office: Sports Center 242
Telephone: 518-580-5369
Email: ckao@skidmore.edu
Chia-Ying Kao (she/her) moved to New York City in 2006 from native Hualien, Taiwan. Chia-Ying trained in ballet, modern, Chinese dance, Chinese folk dance, Kung Fu, improvisation and world dance. She received her MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College in 2012 and founded her company Chia-Ying Kao Dance in 2014.
As an interdisciplinary collaborative and performing artist who has worked in the fields of music, dance, art, and movement, Chia-Ying aims to create imaginary worlds and put them on display for those on the outside looking in to be captivated by the tension that is created from juxtaposing images of realism and abstraction. She had developed a practice-based research toolbox focused on deconstructing the human experience, dealing with issues of identity, power struggle, and the trials and tribulations of daily life. Over the past fifteen years, she has honed a diverse repertoire of pedagogical strategies to effectively and thoughtfully teach students across all ages and experience levels. She encourages her students to be active participants by centering their questions, curiosity, and identity. Her work exhibits movement that is organic and conceptual in nature and blends Western dance forms with those from Asia. She has collaborated and performed with Sara Rudner, Paz Tanjuaquio, Yvonne Rainer, Bill T. Jones, Kathy Westwater, Chinese NY Cultural Center and Hou Ying Dance Theater, among many others.
Chia-Ying’s work has been commissioned most notably by Chen Dance Center, Topaz Arts, Asian-American Cultural Circle of Unity, Triskelion Arts, Broward College, Tribeca Film Festival, Manhattan's Union Square, Roulette NYC, ArtsConnection and Hualien Cultural Arts, in Taiwan. She has been accepted to numerous residencies over her career, including the International Choreographer's Dance Residency at the American Dance Festival in Henan, China in 2012 and Durham, NC in 2013, the Topaz Arts Artist in Residence program in 2012-2013, the International Choreographer’s Residency at TanzART, Germany in 2019, the Topaz Arts AAPI Dance Residency in 2022, and the ArtsConnection Governors Island Residency in 2023. Her dance film ‘Familiar’ was selected for the 2024 Sarah Lawrence College Dance Film Festival. She also received
funding through the Community Arts Grant from Brooklyn Arts Council and an Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts to develop her work ‘Where Your Voices Are’. Her project ‘The Nows’, generously supported by a Suffolk County Cultural Competitive Grant through the Asian-American Cultural Circle of Unity, was performed at the Noel S. Ruiz Theater in Long Island, NY. Her work ‘Out of A Landscape’, funded by an Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, presented at Kunstinitiutive Im Friese- KunstBUS in Germany.
Creative Works
Disintegration
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The Big Picture
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Out of A Landscape
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Where Your Voices Are
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Dance Film -
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