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Kuan-Yu Chen is a choreographer, dancer, teacher, contact improviser, and somatic practitioner from Taiwan. Her performance work and her teaching are both influenced by modern/contemporary, contact improvisation, Alexander Technique, and Body-Mind Centering. Kuan received her BFA in dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has performed internationally and worked with a number of choreographers in Taiwan, the United States, Hong Kong, Canada, the Philippines, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Artists such as Jennifer Monson, Kirsite Simson, Cynthia Oliver, Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, Young Soon Kim, Kensaku Shinohara, Dana Katz, Joshua Monten, and Kate Flatt. She has spent over 10 years developing her dance practice, which is a combination of release technique and contact improvisation, and often uses different elements such as audience interaction and playing with different perspectives through movement, environment, and technology.

 

In 2010 she co-founded Tipsy Point Projects with Taiwanese dance artist Ching-I Chang in New York. Their choreography has been presented in Dumbo Dance Festival, Cool New York Dance Festival, Insight Dance, InHale Performance Series, and DinoMato at Sugar Space.

 

In 2013, Kuan relocated to Hong Kong and was the dance captain in Disney’s Lion King show. She continued her choreography with two Philippine dance artists and colleagues Gil Khan Ravago and Jethro Pioquinto and co-founded DanceOutHK. Their work has been performed in Guangxi Modern Dance Festival, Shenzhen Fringe Festival, and Hong Kong People’s Fringe Festival. They have also presented several full-length evening shows at various theatres.

 

After Hong Kong, Kuan was invited to teach at the 1st Dance and Nature Project in Tenerife, Spain, and several workshops were given in Istanbul, Turkey, at Cati Contemporary Dance Artists Association and Istanbul Conservatory University. Kuan is a freelance dance artist in Europe, currently based in London where she presented her work at Resolution 2017 and Wandsworth Arts Fringe 2018, danced with Royal Opera House and Springs Dance Company, taught at Chisenhale Dance Space, Springs Dance Company, and Goldsmiths. She is the artistic director and the founder of Intoon Dance.