Dana Tai Soon Burgess is a leading American choreographer and cultural figure known worldwide as the “Diplomat of Dance.” In 1992, he founded the Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company (DTSBDC), Washington, D.C.’s preeminent modern dance company now in its 32nd season. The Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Sarah Kaufman says of Burgess, “Not only a Washington prize, but a national dance treasure.”

Burgess creates contemporary modern dance works that explore the joy, sorrow and beauty of the human experience. He has served as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. State Department for over two decades. Burgess has been awarded three Fulbright Senior scholarships for dance and the Selma Jeanne Cohen Dance Lecture Award.

In 2016, Burgess was named the Smithsonian Institution’s first-ever choreographer-in-residence. From 2016 to 2023, he created new works inspired by museum exhibitions, participated in public discussions about dance and art and designed educational programming. The exploration of dance and art is deeply rooted for Burgess. The son of two visual artists he has always approached the stage as a canvas, and the dancers as brush strokes. Burgess was one of only three artists featured in the Smithsonian Institution’s A Korean American Century (2013), an exhibition highlighting the history and achievements of Korean Americans in the United States. He was also highlighted in Dancing the Dream, (2013 to 2014) the Smithsonian’s first exhibition on American dance. Three portraits of Burgess are part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian. He has created works for The National Gallery of Art, The Noguchi Museum, The National Museum of Asian Art, The National Portrait Gallery and The UNM Art Museum, to name a few.

He has served as a Mayoral appointed commissioner for the D.C. Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander Americans and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Burgess is the author of Chino and the Dance of the Butterfly: A Memoir by University of New Mexico Press and the editor of and contributor to the dance history textbook Milestones in Dance History by Routledge/Francis & Taylor. He is the host of Slantpodcast.com which focuses on the Asian American arts experience.