Bay Area Independent Chinese Dancers

08/23/2026

With eight days left before our auditions close, today we're highlighting our Visual Design team. They make our programs, social media design, and posters, sharing our stories with the general public. Whatever your background, and wherever you are, you can help tell our stories with us.

Apply to join our dance, production, and creative teams today.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeS15dZErMmmGwhiOwPqdKG8sbjvfxheSAd3hn1m53hZjPGVA/viewform

08/22/2026

With nine days of auditions left, today we're highlighting our video and photo teams. We have in person positions and remkte video editing positions. They are essential to telling our transnational stories with our friends and family throughout the world. Their work has been instrumental in shaping the cultural consciousness towards more compassion and includisivity, in California and around the world.

Apply to our photo, dance, or any of our other teams by August 31st. No experience required!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeS15dZErMmmGwhiOwPqdKG8sbjvfxheSAd3hn1m53hZjPGVA/viewform

08/18/2026

With two more weeks until our auditions, we're introducing our Dramaturgy team. Our dramaturgs get to work directly with each piece, situating it in provincial and dynastic context, and making sure the voices of real people shine through all our works. They help frame everything, from the scripts that introduce our shows, to the descriptions that appear online and in our programs. Whatever your background, and wherever you may be, you have a home with us

Apply today at the

08/17/2026

As this Indian and Pakistanti independence weekend draws to a close, we want to celebrate this year's south Asian piece: "Home: Fleeing Across Rama's Bridge இல்லம் | சேது வழி நீங்கல்", and particularly this past season's Tamil American collaborators: Composer and Lyricist Sruti Sarathy and Carnatic Vocalist Janani Belonging and home are such contested and fraught ideas, in the past and today. At BAICD, we try to find space for everyone's storey, especially the storeys of inbetween, which broader brushstrokes so often leave behind.

When the Yongle Emperor forced the assembled Sinhalese nobility in Nanjing to choose a single ruler, and then sent Cheng Ho to enforce his rule with a 30,000 person expeditionary army, the Sinhalese states in southern Sri Lanka were united for the first time under one Kingdom. This united kingdom of Kotte, only 10 years later, would conquer the northern Tamil states, and expel the Tamil King of Jaffna across the (then still whole) Rama's land bridge to mainland India, establishing Sinhalese rule for the first time over all Sri Lanka. This story catches up with the women of the fleeing Cinkaiariyan's court, lamenting the common people left in Sri Lanka to an uncertain future, mirroring the experience of one of Sruti's own violin students, who fled Sri Lanka in 1996 as a 16-year old and had to leave her instrument behind. Moreover, it is a reminder that memories of war and exile are part of the context of present-day Carnatic music as practiced by the Sri Lankan Tamil community

08/16/2026

Congratulations to our friends at Mar Narsai Parish : Assyrian Church of the East : Diocese of California in SF on welcoming HH Mar Awa III, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East (and sometime Bishop of California) for the installation of their new Parish Priest!

The Chinese community has a special relationship with the Church of the East, as they represented the first Christian presence in China, first patronized by our Artistic Director Sean Li 's traditional male line ancestor, the Emperor Taizong of Tang, in the persons of the archdeacons of Chang'An and Metropolitan Archbishops of Beth Sinaye.

The played a key part in the pre-history of Cheng Ho's voyages in What Makes Us Great Again? The Hajj of Syed Muhammad Shamsuddin Al-Bukhari 復興 and gave Persian speakers of all religions: Muslim, Zoroastrian, and Christian, their name for the Winter Soltice ܝܠܕܐ, or Nativity. Even today, Mar Narsai Parish is in the Sunset, one of the largest Cantonese neighborhoods in SF. https://www.facebook.com/100095161356167/posts/715490131633026/?mibextid=9drbnH&s=yWDuG2&fs=e

ܐܟܣܝܘܣ

REMINDER — JOIN US THIS SUNDAY!

Mar Narsai Parish warmly invites everyone to join us for a very special celebration as we joyfully welcome His Holiness Mar Awa III, Catholicos-Patriarch, and welcome Shamasha Athnaiel Bazi as our new Parish Priest.

Following the Divine Liturgy, we will gather together for a Fellowship Brunch as one family in faith, to celebrate this joyful occasion and welcome our new parish priest.

Please come and share in this blessed and memorable day with us.

We look forward to celebrating with you and your family!

08/14/2026

As we continue to highlight our behind the scenes departments, today we're looking at the team that makes everything else possible, our grants team. Financial sustainability is key to guaranteeing our artists the artistic freedom to tell their stories, and our grants team led by Laura Uyeki helps tell our stories to granting partners, setting everyone up for success. This is a great team to join if you have your own ideas, but have always wondered how to bring them to life without breaking your own wallet, here in the Bay Area or around the world

Whether you want to tell our stories through grants, dance, on social media, or some other way we haven't heard of, apply today https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeS15dZErMmmGwhiOwPqdKG8sbjvfxheSAd3hn1m53hZjPGVA/viewform

08/13/2026

With two more weeks of our auditions open, we're highlighting our amazing behind the scenes roles, this time in production and stage management. Whether you've never been behind the scenes or are looking for your first Head of Department credit, you have a home with us.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeS15dZErMmmGwhiOwPqdKG8sbjvfxheSAd3hn1m53hZjPGVA/viewform

08/11/2026

Reshaping conceptions of Folk Dance, within and beyond mainland China

For more reflections on the ethics of our folk dance practice, see our Humanity Statement https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=765739696608069&id=100095161356167&mibextid=ZbWKwL

And to join us, apply to our dance, dramaturgy, photography/videography, lighting and sound design, visual design, composition and music, grants, or production management teams, apply at https://bit.ly/baicd-auditions by August 31st

'Reshaping Identity' (民间的舞蹈) is an independent Chinese contemporary dance work that brings together dancers of different ethnic backgrounds. In this essay, performer Yijie Chen takes the show as a lens to discuss the tension between ethnic folk dance as a state-defined form and the individual bodies it claims to represent. Link in comments.

08/09/2026

On this Singapore National Day, we're reliving our primary Singaporean piece from "復興 What Makes Us Great Again?: the Hajj of Syed Muhammad Shamsuddin Al-Bukhari": '街上 Charge Up the Hill'

Cheng Ho was one of the countless boys captured from enemy territories and castrated to serve as eunuchs in the Ming imperial court. Their identities and agencies were ripped away in the name of serving the ruling regime. "Charge Up the Hill", focused on the parallels between Cheng Ho's story and Singaporean mandatory military service, questions the rigidness of military structure and raises awareness towards the conflict between preserving one's own identity and serving thy country. Arabella's choreography seeks to explore alternative ways of loving one's country that is liberated from militarism and toxic masculinity.

Choreography: Arabella Tan, BAICD (2025) California/Singapore
Dancer: Arabella Tan (California/Singapore/Indonesia)
Song Credits: 破衫破裤无人补 by 张美玲 and 范俊福(pre-1970s) Johor Darul Ta'zim covered by 王雪晶 & 小妮妮 (1994) Kuala Lumpur WP
Hokkien Soldier by Jack Neo (ca 1970) Singapore
Photography by Benjamin Huang

Wherever you come from, and however you identify, you have a home with us. Apply today! https://bit.ly/baicd-auditions

#福建兵

08/08/2026

Happy National Day to all our Singaporean fans, both at home and around the world! We take pride in our artists and team members, of every identity and every place. Wherever you come from, you have a home with us.

If you want to join us, at any experience level, and on every team, auditions are due August 31st. https://bit.ly/baicd-auditions

Selamat Hari Kebangsaan 🇸🇬