Press
“Muna is a living archive of the rich performance and dance cultures to emerge from New York’s downtown scene at the the turn of the millennium, as much as she is an oracle of the scene’s still-dawning horizon. The interactive session was lively, personal, and profoundly moving as students were given the opportunity to gain access to a world of embodied knowledge about performance, art, and dance…[m]ore importantly, the students went wild for her visit…”
– Joshua Chambers-Letson, associate professor of performance studies, Northwestern University, Chicago
“Slipping into figure-hugging dresses that give their bodies an instant languor, their way of nearly floating through space mirrors the choreographic sensibility of Wong Kar-wai in his film “In the Mood for Love.” In [Stella] this exploration of memory and legacy, Ms. Tseng asks, what do possessions reveal about a life?”
– Gia Kourlas, New York Times
“Timeless, placeless elegance. One gorgeous moment after another. The changes of tone and rhythm are startling and shatter the erotic trance. Tseng is operating in an area between traditional dance, both Asian and American, and conceptualism. Her visual sense is striking and she attracts talented collaborators.”
– Elizabeth Zimmer, Village Voice
“Ping Chong’s crystalline writing and directing combines with Muna Tseng’s meticulous execution of words and gestures to convey the poignancy of small details, the infusion of life’s minutiae with historical resonance and spiritual magnitude.”
– James Frieze, Performance Review
“A subtle and beautiful dance by a highly talented artist, a fine technique and her own very individual approach to movement.”
– John Percival, London Times
“Muna Tseng conveyed a breadth of body language that belonged to no particular country and to all. Every move was concentrated and led to the next; they were unexpected, yet inevitable, so that they held the mind as well as the eye.”
– Dora Sowden, Jerusalem Post
“The different time frames, the environment and the happenings during the creation/gestation process gave an additional aura to the beautiful, sensitive, delicate yet solid, melancholic yet witty performance.”
– Moh Siew Lan, Goethe-Institut, Singapore
“This European premiere is shocking and exciting at the same time. A new dance dimension has been attained.”
– Roland Langer, Frankfurter Rundschau
“The poetic imagery was consistently fragile and transitory. Meditative imagery shared space with sexual sporting and spare, wry jokes.”
– Molly McQuade, Dance Magazine
“Ping Chong and Muna Tseng polish a gesture, a line of text, a slant of light, in isolation, then slide one against another until the juxtaposition ignites a new, stunning vision…Chong’s politically charged text crackles around the serene figure of Tseng.”
– Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice
“Purity of vision is sustained by Tseng and her performers who deliver intensity and maturity. Innovative, an exciting tour de force.”
– Daryl Ries, BBC Radio Hong Kong
“Miss Tseng danced also with her usual breath-taking projection in ‘Hamadryad’ (1948), making her wood nymph jagged and hip-jutting until Miss Erdman naturally resolved this anger into a quieter shape.”
– Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times
“It was in Vancouver that [Tseng] encountered the work of Jean Erdman, which led to her moving in 1977 to New York to perform with Erdman’s multi-discipline Theater of the Open Eye… Erdman’s influence… expanded her access to the techniques of theatricality.”
– William Littler, Toronto Star