Muna Tseng

Muna Tseng is an acclaimed Chinese-American dancer/choreographer, author and lecturer who has lived and worked in New York since 1978. She founded Muna Tseng Dance Projects in New York City in 1984, has created over 40 productions and performed in over 30 cities and festivals in 15 countries. She has since 1990 been the director and executrix of her late brother Tseng Kwong Chi's photography archive. She is the chair of the ‘Current Practice’ subcommittee for the annual 'Bessies' New York Dance and Performance Award.

Muna Tseng was born and raised in Hong Kong. In Vancouver, Canada, she began her modern dance training at age 13 with Magda and Gertrude Hanova, disciples of Mary Wigman, as well as with Heather McCallum who worked with Anna Halprin. Tseng was invited to New York by Jean Erdman after graduating from the University of British Columbia. Tseng was a principal dancer in Erdman and her husband and mythologist Joseph Campbell’s Theatre of the Open Eye from 1978 to 1985, and was one of the first dancers to inherit many of Erdman’s seminal roles, dancing to originally commissioned music by John Cage, Teiji Ito, Lou Harrison, and Louis Horst.

She has taught as adjunct faculty at New York University in the Playwrights Horizons Program (1996) and the Atlantic Theater Program (2002-2004), she was also an adjunct professor at Rutgers University from 1980-1983. She was the founded and directed the Caumsett Summer Dance Residency program at Queens College from 1984-1987. She regularly teaches residency workshops in Tallinn, Estonia at Pollitalu Arts Centre, as well as in Bordeaux, France.

Tseng regularly lectures on her topics of expertise, which include; dance, performance, archiving and estate management. She has lectured at The Platform at Paris Photo, The Institute for Artists' Estates, and OPEN Singapore, among others.

BESSIE, New York Dance & Performance Award for Choreography/Creation with Ping Chong, SlutForArt, 1999.

Citation for Best Choreography, 2000-2001 theater season, Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, The Silver River.

...
Wikipedia