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Rachel Cooper has been at the Asia Society since 1993 and is the Director for Performing Arts and Programs. She has extensive experience in the presentation of traditional and contemporary Asian and Asian-American performing arts and the development of interdisciplinary programs.
IN THE NEWS
Renowned Pakistani singer Arif Lohar, who will be performing at the Asia Society on April 27 - 28, 2012, is the subject of an article in the New York Times. A review of the show.
A traditional Javanese Wayang Kulit, presented at the Asia Society on March 16, 2012 featured a nontraditional puppet of President Obama, who famously lived part of his childhood in Jakarta. Read the Atlantic magazine article!In November 2011, Rachel was in Mumbai directing the NEW VOICES workshops, in which Asia Society India Centre awarded Fellowships to six emerging screenwriters.
Rachel was honored with an award August 9, 2011 at the Fourth Annual Iftar Dinner, a celebration of Ramadan that brings together leading members of New York's Muslim community. She was recognized for her efforts in creating understanding between the U.S. and Muslims in Asia through the arts. Among her many efforts towards that goal, Cooper directs Asia Society's Creative Voices of Islam in Asia, , a "multi-disciplinary, multi-year initiative that seeks to increase understanding and appreciation of the diversity of creative voices within contemporary Muslim societies in Asia."
BRIEFLYMs. Cooper did her undergraduate and graduate work at UCLA in Ethnic Arts and Dance Ethnology. She lived in Indonesia for six years from 1983-89. She was awarded the 2006 Dawson Award for sustained achievement in performing arts programmatic excellence from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), an 'Izzy' (Isadora Duncan) award for the Festival of Indonesia, a Rockefeller grant for choreography, and the Clifton F. Webb award for film. Ms. Cooper is an advisor for the National Dance Project and the co-chair of the Arts Presenters annual conference for 2005 and 2006.
Ms. Cooper is the co-founder, former director, current board president of the San Francisco-based Balinese music and dance company, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, which has been presenting the arts of Bali in the United States since 1979.