Asian Performing Arts is a group of dedicated and talented performers and artists with the goal in promoting and retaining Chinese Cultural Arts. We performed in numerous international festivals across the Connecticut and Massachusetts, fund raising events for United Way, Greater Hartford Arts Council, Special Olympic, FoodShare Gala, and Adoption Gala. The performing troupe consists of youth artists from ages 10 through 17 as well as adult artists. The 2 founders of the group are Stephanie Sum and Julie Lai who are dance instructors at the Chinese Language School of Greater Hartford, CT. They both have many years of experiences in teaching, choreographing, and performing Asian cultural dances. Stephanie Sum has developed and pioneered the Chinese Language, Culture and Dance Program for children adopted from China since last year in the Greater Hartford area. Visit the web site of Asian Academy of Arts and Culture for details of class curriculum and schedule.
Asian Performing Arts provides a full program to any event ranging from one to two hours. APA can also provide performances on a by-request basis. This can be by specific type of performances and/or number of performances requested by the sponsoring organization.
Click here for list of performances
Click here for Schedule
Asian Performing Arts encourages audience involvement during our performances. We often incorporate "Get the Audience Involved" segment in our performance program, e.g. Ribbon Dance, Tribal Mountain Dance, Mongolian Chop-Stick Dance, Chinese Yo-Yo, Tai Chi…etc. Our experience has demonstrated that this is a very well received program. It often becomes the highlight of the program since the audience enjoys it very much. This program gives the audience an excellent hands-on experience of Asian cultural dances and arts, and the ease of learning Tai Chi.
Asian Performing Arts also conducts seminars in colleges and schools. Seminars will be tailored according to the needs of the requesting organizations. It could be a one-time event to give students or teachers a brief overview of Chinese culture with a step-by-step demonstration. It could be a series of 6 to 8 classes to give students and instructors a more comprehensive education on Chinese language, history, holiday celebrations, culture, costumes, and a more extensive training of Chinese cultural dances, Marital Arts, and/or Tai Chi.
We provide Chinese painting, paper cutting, face painting with oriental symbols, calligraphy, origami, and knotting displays and hands-on demonstrations for international cultural events. Popular requests of craft demonstrations included Lion Mask, Dragon Boat Picture Composition, Panda Bookmark, Face Painting with Oriental symbols, and Name Translation in Chinese Calligraphy …etc. Workshops to learn how to do the above Chinese arts and crafts could be arranged.
Routine classes are offered to kids from age 3 to 17 as well as adults to provide basic training of Chinese Cultural dances for beginners and more advanced training for experienced dancers.
For information, please contact:
Stephanie Sum, Executive Director (860)688-9420
Julie Lai, Artistic Director (860)749-5757
Email ID: asianperformingarts@yahoo.com