The dance company of Dana Tai Soon Burgess, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery Choreographer-in-Residence, performed “We Choose to Go to the Moon,” at the National Portrait Gallery’s Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, December 12, 2018 (see our photos below) with repeat performances scheduled for Saturday Dec. 15 and Tuesday Dec. 18 at 6:30 pm. The one hour performances are free and open to the public. (Click here for reservations.) Following each performance, Dana Tai Soon Burgess plus guests from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and the scientific community will make brief presentations and answer questions.

Inspired by the space race and President Kennedy’s 1962 speech at Rice University entitled “We Choose to Go to the Moon”, Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company developed this work in collaboration with NASA. The piece “explores the connection between humanity and space, touching upon America’s idealism around the space race, the mystery of the cosmos, and the fragility of life.”

The score features nostalgic music from the 1950s and 1960s and incorporates the voices of scientists, an Apollo astronaut, and a Santa-Fe based medicine woman. Watch two dancers prance along with meteors to Perry Como’s 1957 hit “Catch a Falling Star.” (You may also recognize the vocalizations of Frankie Avalon, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra.)

“We Choose to Go to the Moon” had its world premiere at the Kennedy Center in 2015. Burgess chose to bring it to the National Portrait Gallery at this time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8 (launch date Dec. 21, 1968); the first manned spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit, reach the Moon, orbit it, and safely return.

View Jeff Malet’s photos from the December 12 performance at the National Portrait Gallery of “We Choose to Go to the Moon” by clicking on the photo icons below.

You can read more about what inspires Dana Tai Soon Burgess who spoke at our December 6 Cultural Leadership Breakfast at the George Town Club by clicking here.