What are the main themes from your body of work that will be featured in the exhibition?
There are two themes. At the KMA, we focus on the work since 2000. This marks when I started discovering movement in visual art (paintings). We see a lot of movement in the brushstrokes—related to dance movement and to music. You will experience how the sound of music affects your feelings and inspires movement in your body that moves through your brush to create a painting. You will actually see a painting that incorporates the quality, energy, and texture of a piece of music exhibited together with the sound. In fact, you will see a whole series of paintings while you hear the associated music. We will show paintings inspired by dance movement and they will be exhibited along with a video of the related dance excerpt. And you will see a video of the painting process I used—from beginning to end. And then you will see the finished painting… with the music. So we will show some of the techniques I have been using for over twenty years to create work. Seeing the movement in still paintings is the theme at the KMA.
The exhibition at Pocantico focuses on my most recent work—from the pandemic onward. These paintings go beyond music and movement to address the spirit. They are a kind of landscape—but of your soul or spirit—a visual, spiritual landscape. And I am working on a new dance work in conjunction with this, which will be called “Mindscape.”
How was it decided which aspect of your work would be hosted by each institution?
Both institutions have been in conversation for a while. But the director of the KMA, Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe, conceptualized the plan. Both sites are museums, and the exhibitions will be comprised mostly of paintings, but they will each house something totally different, giving people a completely different experience. At Katonah, you will see works displayed with my videos and music. At Pocantico, you will see paintings, films of my dance works, and showings of the new choreography in process.
How much live dance will be incorporated into the exhibitions?
At Pocantico, we will have a two-week residency to continue working on the new piece “Mindscape” that we began this past summer at the American Dance Festival (ADF) and will premiere there next summer. The residency will conclude with a special show geared toward our dance audience on October 17th, in which we will perform excerpts from that work. They will also show some of my dance films. And we will continue to schedule more for later. At Katonah, we will present a different performance for their opening on October 19th. Then we will offer some educational programs with performances and conversations for the local community.
What is your relationship with ADF and how was that relationship instrumental in launching your company?
I began my modern dance training at the American Dance Festival’s program at the Guangdong Dance Academy in China in 1989. Then in 1991, I co-founded the first modern dance company in China—Guangdong Modern Dance Company. Later, when I moved to New York in 1995 after receiving a fellowship to study at the Nikolais/Louis Dance Lab, I approached ADF sending them my videos and told them I was in the US and would like to participate in their programs. They invited me that summer for their International Choreographers Residency program. I made a piece there that was just okay—kind of derivative. I returned to New York and invested myself over the next five years in creating choreography, paintings, and films. During that time I made many works that never went anywhere. But I was moving through a process of understanding and developing my own artistic approach to movement and visual arts.
In 1999, I went back to China and made a piece called “Folding” for the Guangdong Dance Company. I thought to myself, “I know and love all the American modern dance techniques, but I am going to create something with my own movement, artistic vision, and approach.” When I made “Folding,” the reaction I received was that they had never seen modern dance like this. The piece was a huge success—in Europe first. So I sent the videotape to ADF. They said, “This is something totally different!” So they immediately invited me back in 2000 and I made another work called “Near the Terrace” using the same approach. Again, it was a huge success. Once I had successes in both Europe and the US, invitations to perform started pouring in. But I didn’t have a company; I only had the dances. So, I chose a number of dancers from ADF who had performed my work and a few from SUNY Purchase—twelve dancers—to form the first generation of my dance company and start touring my work.
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