程之柔 (Chih-Jou Cheng)

"Living a life for service 
Live by faith but not by sight 
Lift each other up." 
-- Alvin Ailey 

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Chih-Jou Cheng is a Taiwanese physical theatre creator, movement artist, puppeteer, and co-artistic director of the Dawn Theatre Project, currently based in Chicago. As a performer, some of her Chicago credits include A Chorus Line as Connie Wong (Metropolis PAC), The King and I (Drury Lane Theatre), The Dream King (Teatro Vista).

As a teacher and choreographer, she has choreographed Newsies for Music House and several other single pieces including Devote, Relief, Endless Love, and Carry On. Additionally, one of her choreography pieces, Night Sky, for Bartelt Dancers youth company in Ohio, received two 1st places, Best Judge choice of Choreography, and 5 other Awards in the 2018 competition season.

Her recent projects include “Above the Water”, “Unfinished Island Songs”, and “Arriving at Dawn”, exploring themes of migration, identity, and healing. She is dedicated to creating works that foster compassion, challenge perspectives, and promote collective healing through innovative, interdisciplinary physical theatre.  Her work has been supported by Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio residencies. She has been awarded the Chicago Arts & Health Pilot For Creative Workers and the 2024 Princess Grace Honoraria. ​

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For Chih-Jou (之柔), creating meaningful artwork is a way to love harder and think deeper. She is dedicated to creating artworks that illuminate the challenges and joys of the human experience through collaborative physical theatre and puppetry. She is interested in telling stories that open up doors for dialogue. To ask the question: what does it mean to be human? to use her artwork as a platform to talk about those unspeakable topics, challenging perspectives, and share those hidden stories of ours:

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