For immediate release: February 20, 2009

Contact: Luckman Fine Arts Complex – Marketing

323-343-6656 or -6600

THE HARRIET & CHARLES LUCKMAN FINE ARTS COMPLEX

California State University, Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032

Vietnamese-American dance legend Minh Tran to present his company at

the Luckman Fine Arts Complex
WHO: Minh Tran & Company
WHAT: Nocturnal Path and The War Within
WHEN: Saturday, March 14, 2009 – 8:30 PM
WHERE: Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Intimate Theatre
California State University, Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032
TICKETS: $30. Box Office: 323-343-6600 or ticketmaster.com
INFO: www.luckmanarts.org

The Luckman Fine Arts Complex on the campus of Cal State L.A. will present Minh Tran &
Company of March 14, 2009 at 8:30 PM.

Since they began touring in 2003, Minh Tran & Company has rattled the dance scene with works
that are as brilliantly emotional as they are historically profound.

The Company will perform their recent piece, Nocturnal Path, and a reprise from the celebrated
autobiographical work, The War Within.

Nocturnal Path was commissioned by the White Bird/Tiffany & Co. New Works fund, and made
possible by the Doris Duke Fund for Dance, the National Dance Project, the New England
Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. This piece, with music by
Michael Stearns, Lou Harrison, Dead Can Dance, Thich Nhat Hanh, Yungchen Lhamo, and Philip
Glass, draws from the spiritual world of Southeast Asia, and is based on images of archaeological
reliefs and mural paintings from Vietnamese temples.

The War Within is an excerpt from Mr. Tran’s autobiographical dance journal “The Road Home”
documenting his first return trip to Vietnam in 1994. This particular section recalls memories and
experiences in South Vietnam under the communist regime from 1975-1980 and his escape to
Thailand.

Born in Vietnam, Artisitc Director Minh Tran immigrated to the United States in 1980 as a political
refugee. In addition to receiving dance training in classical Vietnamese opera at the National
School of Fine and Performing Arts in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Mr. Tran holds a Master of Fine
Arts Degree in Dance from the University of Washington.

(more)

THE HARRIET & CHARLES LUCKMAN FINE ARTS COMPLEX

5151 STATE UNIVERSITY DRIVE • LOS ANGELES, CA 90032-8116 • Box Office: (323) 343-6600 • luckmanarts.org
 For immediate release: February 20, 2009
Contact: Luckman Fine Arts Complex – Marketing
323-343-6656 or -6600

Mr. Tran has created over thirty choreographic works since 1989. As both a dancer and
choreographer, his work has received numerous grants, fellowships and commissions, including:
the Regional Arts & Culture Council; White Bird / Tiffany & Company New Works Fund; Oregon
Arts Commission; Oregon Ballet Theatre; BodyVox; Alaska Dance Theater, Portland State
University's Contemporary Dance Season; PICA's TBA Festival; the Portland International
Performance Festival; ArtExplosion: A Festival of Asian American Performing Arts; San Francisco
Performances; San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Seattle's On the Boards;
UCLA’s Asian & Pacific Performance Exchange Initiative; New York’s Dance Theater Workshop
Suitcase Fund’s Mekong Project with support from the Rockefeller Foundation.

In 2003 Minh Tran & Company was awarded a production and touring grant from the Doris Duke
Fund for Dance of the National Dance Project, administered by the New England Foundation for
the Arts with funding from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Doris Duke Charitable
Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Altria Group, Inc.

Since 1995 Mr. Tran has acted as a review panelist for numerous public and private funding
organizations, including: Western States Arts Federation's TourWest Program, Denver, Colorado;
Regional Arts & Culture Council, Portland Oregon; Artist Trust/The Washington State Arts
Commission Fellowship, Seattle Washington; The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, San
Francisco; and the National Endowment for the Arts, Northwest Region Project Grants. In
addition he curated On the Boards 12 Minutes Max series for the 1997-1998 season, and served
as Treasurer for the Dance Coalition of Oregon. Mr. Tran is currently a member of the advisory
committee for New York's Dance Theater Workshop Suitcase Fund / Task force on Southeast
Asia / Mekong Region which is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. He additionally serves as
an arts consultant for Dance Advance which supports dance culture in the Philadelphia area,
funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Mr. Tran’s work has been performed throughout the United States, as well as internationally in
Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Dancers for Minh Tran & Company are Minh Tran, Carla Mann, Sam Hobbs, Riho Katagiri,
Angela Carceres, Joshua Thrower, Margetta Hansen.

Tickets for this event are available through the Luckman Box Office at 323-343-6600 or through
ticketmaster.com. For more information, please visit luckmanarts.org.

The Harriet & Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex, with two state-of-the-art theatres and a
critically acclaimed art gallery, enjoys a reputation for presenting world-class music, dance,
theatre, and visual arts programming in a beautiful, accessible setting. It is located on the campus
of California State University, Los Angeles at 5151 State University Drive, near the convergence
of the 10 and 710 freeways. A full schedule of all Luckman Fine Arts Complex events and
exhibitions is available online at luckmanarts.org.

Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los
Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and
cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 205,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests,
ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally
recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and
humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty.

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THE HARRIET & CHARLES LUCKMAN FINE ARTS COMPLEX

5151 STATE UNIVERSITY DRIVE • LOS ANGELES, CA 90032-8116 • Box Office: (323) 343-6600 • luckmanarts.org