The Face of Philanthropy: Dancers at an Exhibition

Art museums are usually hushed, contemplative spaces, but when Washington museumgoers strolled through the city’s Kreeger Museum a few months ago, they were stunned to find dancers performing alongside four of Pablo Picasso’s celebrated paintings. Such responses are common toward the Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company, which has performed in some of the capital city’s most prestigious museums.

Surprise and delight are wonderful to see on visitors’ faces, says Mr. Burgess, the nonprofit company’s founder and chief choreographer. Bringing dance to unexpected places has another benefit: It attracts people who might not think about attending such a performance.

“It gets our presence out in the community in a different way,” Mr. Burgess says.

The museums also serve as sources of inspiration for Mr. Burgess. The choreographer sometimes creates new dances there — while museum patrons are present. When he was at the Kreeger, he says, the Picasso paintings inspired a new work. “People started returning, and you start to recognize people who are really interested in seeing how the creative process unfolds,” he says.

Sometimes museum visitors get involved in that process, as they did when the troupe was serving as artists in residence at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and performed a piece Mr. Burgess created using feedback from museum visitors and Internet viewers of his choreography.

The resulting work focused on the changing face of America, a theme that courses through many of the company’s dances and is an outgrowth of Mr. Burgess’s roots.

The son of artists, Mr. Burgess grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His mother is Korean-American and from Hawaii; his father is of Irish, Scottish, and German descent and grew up in upstate New York.

They inspired their son’s interest in exploring topics like identity and immigration, and instilled in him a fascination with how visual art can intersect with other creative mediums.

Here, dancers from the company perform in the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard at the National Portrait Gallery.