Cynthia Ling Lee
Cynthia Ling Lee instigates thoughtful, friction-filled dialogues between American postmodern dance and North Indian classical kathak. Committed to intimate collaborative processes and ethical intercultural exchange, she co-creates with dancers, composers, and visual artists of diverse backgrounds, deftly weaving creative writing, theater, live music, and multimedia into her performance work. Her scholarly writing focuses on transnational web-based choreographic collaboration and postcolonial, queer, and feminist-of-color perspectives on South Asian performance.
Cynthia's artistic partners-in-crime include the Post Natyam Collective, a transnational, web-based coalition of women artists who creatively and critically engage South Asian dance; musicians David Cutler (jazz/new music), Paul Livingstone (Ragajazz), and Loren Nerell (Indonesian/electronic); and visual artists YaYa Chou (sculptural installation) and Carole Kim (multimedia installation). Her intercultural, interdisciplinary performance has been presented at venues such as Asia Society (New York), Black Box (Kuala Lumpur), Chaaya Nat (Dhaka), Chandra-Mandapa: Spaces (Chennai) Dance Theater Workshop (New York), Department of Performing Arts (Phnom Penh),East West Players (Los Angeles), India International Center (New Delhi), Integrier-Bar (Munich), Kuandu Arts Festival (Taipei), Links Hall (Chicago), National Asian-American Theater Festival (Los Angeles), Natya/STEM (Bangalore), Painted Bride Arts Center (Philadelphia), REDCAT (Los Angeles), Taman Ismail Marzuki (Jakarta), and the Substation Theatre (Singapore). Recent publications include articles in Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship (eds. Elke Zobl and Ricarda Drüeke) and Studies in South Asian Film and Media.
Cynthia was the recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, an Asia-Pacific Performing Arts Exchange Fellowship, a Swarthmore Project Residency, a Taipei Artist Village Residency, a NET/TEN grant, two Santa Monica Individual Artist Fellowships, and two Artists' Resource for Completion grants. Some of her most influential teachers and mentors include Simone Forti, Eiko & Koma, Judy Mitoma, Pallabi Chakravorty, Bandana Sen, Kumudini Lakhia, Anjani Ambegaokar, and the contact improvisation community. Cynthia holds an MFA in choreography from UCLA and a BA in English Literature from Swarthmore College. She is a board member of the Network of Ensemble Theaters, dedicated to propelling ensemble theater practice to the forefront of American culture and society.