Nai-Ni Chen performing in Passage to the Silk River at New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival in 2005. Credit…Stephanie Berger for The New York Times

It is with deep regret that I announce the passing of our beloved choreographer, Nai Ni Chen.  She was a brilliant, imaginative spirit and created a company and dances that merged Eastern and Western cultures. No words can express our sorrow to her family and to the dancers in the company that loved her so well.
—Joanne Rile

From the New York Times on December 13, 2021:

Ms. Chen, who founded the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company in 1988, died while swimming in Hawaii, where she was vacationing.

Nai-Ni Chen, a dancer and choreographer whose Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company has merged traditional Chinese and contemporary influences in performances all over the United States as well as overseas for three decades, died on Sunday in a swimming accident while vacationing in Hawaii. She was 62.

The incident occurred off Kailua Beach in Oahu. Her husband and partner in the company, Andrew N. Chiang, in a posting on the company’s Facebook page, said that Ms. Chen went for a swim in the ocean and that her body was found by a passer-by.

Read the full article By Neil Genzlinger here…