Johnny Huy Nguyễn: BURN
Sunday, August 30, 2026, 4:30pm: Dragons Dance/Erin Yen & Johnny Huy Nguyễn - ASL Interpretation Provided
How do you burn? Reclaiming fire as a regenerative force for rebirth, BURN (Work In Progress) envisions dance as a transformative act of self-immolation. How do we set ablaze inherited legacies of war, forced displacement, and violence passed down through family to create ash for new growth?
Johnny Huy Nguyễn is a Vietnamese multidisciplinary dance artist and son of refugees based in unceded Ramaytush - Ohlone territory. He weaves together movement, theater, multimedia, spoken word, ritual, and installation to create body-based works characterized by sweeping physicality and dramaturgical depth. His works deal with themes of masculinity, spirituality, lineage, loss, and inheritance while interrogating the social, political, and cultural forces that shape us. Nguyễn is a 2025 Walter & Elise Haas Creative Power Award Finalist, 2025 Caldera Artist-in-Residence, 2023 United States of Asian America Festival Featured Artist, 2022 Isadora Duncan Dance Award recipient, and 2021 APAture Festival Featured Artist.
@johnny.huy.nguyen
This project is generously supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation (New Experimental Works Grant) and San Francisco Arts Commission (Arts Impact Endowment).
Accessibility at ODC
ODC Theater and studios across the ODC Campus are ADA-accessible. Getting to Studio B and Argyle in the ODC Dance Commons involves riding an elevator or climbing one flight of stairs. Our restrooms are gender-neutral and wheelchair accessible. The front row of the ODC Theater is located on the ground floor; all seating beyond the front row requires climbing stairs. Assisted listening devices are available upon request. Please indicate your access needs during the checkout process. Questions?
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ODC is on the ancestral lands of the Ramaytush People in Yelamu. We pay respects to elders past and present, who are still here and part of our community. We recognize that regenerative land management is not new, but is a continuation of practices from Native cultures and from our own ancestors. It is our responsibility to steward the land with care, as our elders did before us.
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ODC offers a limited number of free and/or lower-cost Art Access tickets to every ODC presented performance. For most performances in B. Way Theater, twenty tickets are allocated to the Arts Access tiers. These additionally subsidized tickets, available on a first-come, first-serve basis, are reserved for those for whom price is a barrier. Please contact boxoffice@odc.dance if you or your organization is interested in underwriting the cost of additional Arts Access tickets.
About the Theater
ODC Theater exists to empower and develop innovative artists. It participates in the creation of new works through commissioning, presenting, mentorship and space access; it develops informed, engaged and committed audiences; and advocates for the performing arts as an essential component to the economic and cultural development of our community. This 170-seat venue is the site of over 150 performances a year involving nearly 1,000 local, regional, national and international artists.
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