New York Sun
By MARY STAUB August 4, 2008
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, which begins its two-week engagement at the Joyce Theater today, nurtures and cultivates young choreographers from within its own ranks to add company-exclusive works to the repertory. Hubbard Street's artistic director, Jim Vincent, is intrigued by the subtlety and uniqueness that arise when dancers work with their peers.
An annual choreographic workshop introduced by Mr. Vincent, "Inside/Out," lets Hubbard Street dancers create choreography for fellow company members, complete with sound, lighting design, and costumes. It was in a 2005 workshop that Alejandro Cerrudo's "Lickety-Split" began as a simple duet, set to music by indiefolk singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart. Mr. Vincent was so impressed with the duet that two of Mr. Cerrudo's works have since become company repertory and will have their New York premieres during Hubbard Street's stint at the Joyce. "There was a humanity and humor that drew us into the space between the couple," Mr. Vincent said. "Alejandro was tapping into something that brought out the personality of the dancers, something that somebody from outside was not going to be able to do right away." So, Mr. Vincent asked for an expansion. Although reluctant at first because he saw the duet as done with, Mr. Cerrudo found more Banhart music that created the same aura, and turned the duet into a work for three couples — "Lickety-Split."
"Banhart is a nonsense-singer, where words don't always make sense, but at the same time the music gives you a specific sense, like poetry, that you don't necessarily understand, but love," Mr. Cerrudo said. "I think using a collage of music is always iffy, but Jim wanted me to expand so I looked more into Banhart and found some songs that worked."
Mr. Cerrudo, 28, is both flattered and daunted that his own creations — "Lickety-Split" and "Extremely Close" — now appear alongside the artists he so admires. "It is an honor and also pushes you to always want more and more and more," Mr. Cerrudo explained from Reno, Nev., during a break in performances two weeks ago. "When you have respect for other works in the repertoire you put your own standards very high and want your works also to be up there."
When the Spanish-born Mr. Cerrudo first saw Hubbard Street Dance Chicago perform at a Houston gala six years ago, he knew he wanted in. The dancers were fantastic, he thought, and the repertory, including works by Nacho Duato, Jirí Kylián, and William Forsythe, were impressive. He moved to Chicago and joined the company just a few years later.
"When working with your colleagues it's a great support structure to find your own voice as choreographer in, and not just to create movement, but to bring out individuality," Mr. Vincent said. "This gives the audience the opportunity to meet the dancers as people, and not just see them as dancers. They are exhibited, celebrated, and shared with the viewer." When Mr. Cerrudo creates a new work he envisions an atmosphere, and this guides the steps, scenery, and music he selects. To create the aura he wanted for his newest work, "Extremely Close," set to piano solos by Philip Glass and Dustin O'Halloran, he began by altering the studio space and changing lighting and design. "I turned off the lights and brought in stage lighting so that it was lit from the floor," Mr. Cerrudo explained. "I wanted to take the dancer out of the studio where we work every day so that when you enter it's a little bit different. I wanted to avoid the feeling of 'this is a studio and just another rehearsal.'"
As in most of his works, Mr. Cerrudo prefers to avoid specifying the subject matter of "Extremely Close" and "Lickety-Split."
"The understanding of different works is so much up to the individual," Mr. Cerrudo said. "I have my own interpretation but that doesn't mean that everybody else has to see it that way. Sometimes I hear a different interpretation and feel it works very well. This can change the way I feel about my own work. There's no right or wrong on how you feel about art." Although Mr. Cerrudo's work has toured extensively already, this will be its first appearance in New York. "I am very excited," Mr. Cerrudo said. "I see New York as the center of many arts and dance; it's culturally a very rich city and it's an honor to perform in New York."
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's Joyce engagement will also include New York premieres by Mr. Vincent, Hubbard Street associate artistic director Lucas Crandall, and the Japanese choreographer Toru Shimazaki. Further on the bill are works by Ohad Naharin, Doug Varone, and Nacho Duato.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Where Are The Female Ballet Choreographers?
Dancer Magazine
Jul 31, 2008 – By Mary Staub
In all likelihood, if you have ever taken a ballet class, about 85 percent of your fellow dancers were female. This tends to be true whether you are an eager 6-year-old conscientiously stretching your leg forth in tendu at the bar, a BFA student at the Ailey Studios in New York practicing a triple tour en l’air, or anywhere in between. Across all ages and state borders, in today’s field, the beauty of ballet still speaks more strongly to girls.
However, fast forward a few years, and look at who has gone on to choreograph, present on major stages, and run major companies, and the landscape looks dramatically different. Of 59 major ballet companies – those with budgets of more than $1 million – just 20 percent are run by women, according to data compiled by Dance/USA, a 26-year-old organization that serves as a national dance hub. The other 80 percent of our nation’s big ballet companies are run by men –look at San Francisco Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet throughout its history, to name a few.
“There is a definite difference between different communities and different genres of how gender breaks down,” says John Munger, director of Research and Information at Dance/USA. “But looked at overall there is definitely a degree of gender bias, and it is clearest in ballet.”
Furthermore, of the twelve women who do run big-budget ballet companies, eleven were company founders, according to Munger. This means that just one woman, Victoria Morgan at Cincinnati Ballet, has been appointed. By comparison, of the 47 men at the helm of these major companies, 41 have been appointed.
“My hypothesis is that these large ballet companies are past their founding generation,” says Munger. “They are driven by a hiring process at the top, not by the dance field, but by a board of directors who are highly corporate and highly conservative.”
Down on the ground in Philadelphia, Christine Cox, a former dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet, now co-runs and choreographs for her own small-budget contemporary ballet company, BalletX. Like many other former professional ballerinas, she has taken note of the imbalance on larger stages and has found her own way to respond – actively, engagingly, creatively.
“I’ve worked with lots of choreographers as a dancer and it stands out that throughout 20 years I can count on one hand the women,” Cox says with a tone of slight astonishment. “How is it that 90 percent in the studio are women and later you find so few women running companies? I’ve discussed this with others in the dance industry and it’s true on Broadway, everywhere. I thought it would be a compelling story to have an all-female choreographers program – and I’m not a woman activist trying to make a point here. This is just an observation.”
The female choreographers project also includes panel discussions with dancers, choreographers, researchers and audience members, who together will look for their own explanations for the imbalance. Similarly, Deborah Lohse in New York - who danced for Sacramento Ballet – has taken a proactive approach.
“I think I felt my observations gave me permission to be more aggressive,” Lohse said. “Creating my own company was the best way to address the imbalance.”
Lohse started choreographing and created her own contemporary ballet company, ad hoc Ballet, partly because she saw limited opportunities for ‘real women’ in most ballet companies. At 5’10,” she knew first-hand how difficult it could be to get jobs in ballet if you did not fit the physical ideal.
“I wanted to create works for women like those I know - not just those who can be cute, innocent, dainty - and give a female perspective on the female ballerina body,” Lohse says. “A lot of ballerinas still believe they need to be physically beautiful to get the job. I’m not interested in that, but want to tell stories about women who do not live up to the ideal, and show things that are seemingly ugly and show that they’re really quite beautiful.”
Lohse recently gained insight into certain discrepancies between how men and women seem to scout for students. On a recent arts exchange program at North Carolina School of the Arts, Lohse was the only female artistic director on a panel of directors and choreographers from across the country.
“Men and women do approach business differently,” Lohse says. “I watched how the others scouted for students and it was very different from how I was looking at students. They were looking more for technique and body type. I didn’t even know what I was looking for – I just knew I’d recognize it when I saw it.”
As much as people like to feign that in our 21st-century – supposedly progressive – society, gender equality is the norm, anyone with just a touch of truthfulness knows this is not so. Men and women are still met by different expectations and come upon different hurdles, this is as true in the wondrous world of ballet as amongst the corporate crowds of Wall Street.
“Our society is still more confident with men being in managerial positions – it’s our culture,” says Janis Brenner, a board member of the Gender Project, an eight-year study group that tried to get to the bottom of gender discrepancies in dance through interviews and surveys with dancers, choreographers, presenters and directors. “It’s a societal thing and the dance world is simply a micro-cosmos for the way the larger world works.”
The results of the Gender Project have brought no clear conclusions, but highlight multiple issues that factor into the overall equation. One is that men seem to ‘manage’ companies differently than women, and overall, their way of management is still seen as ‘better’ – more practical, less personal.
“Maybe men have more management skills and it is easier for them to manage 100 people as a choreographer,” says Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, one of the choreographers Cox is bringing to Philadelphia to create dances on BalletX for the all-female choreographers project. Ochoa, who danced with Rotterdam’s Scapino Ballet for seven years, is now a full-time freelance choreographer based in the Netherlands.
“What I notice as a choreographer when working with 100 people [is that] I am trying to make everyone happy. Men care that the business works well, not so much whether everyone is happy,” Ochoa said light-heartedly in a phone conversation from the Netherlands. “As long as the business is good and things look good, then for them things are good.”
Differential treatment of boys and girls in ballet starts at an early age and seems another reason men and women take on different roles later in life. BalletX’s Cox, like most women, realized this early on. She studied at the schools of the Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Pennsylvania Ballet, and at all schools, as can be expected, most of her classmates were female.
“When I was training to be a dancer the men stood out because there were so few of them,” Cox says very matter-of-factly. “There’s so much competition with women that it requires perfection, intense focus and drive. With men you need maybe 50 percent of the talent that females have, and focus. This is just our culture.”
Unless thousands of little boys suddenly start yearning for ballet, the preconceptions and treatment are unlikely to change. Lay-people continue to view boys who lean towards ballet as un-manly, which continues to discourage interest. Within the ballet world, in contrast, men are relied upon greatly. They are continuously encouraged, pushed to develop bold stances and voices and move forward.
“In ballet classes young women are taught to be obedient, while men are taught to jump and be bold,” says JoAnna Mendl Shaw, a co-founder of the Gender Project and teacher in the Ailey/Fordham BFA program in New York City. “The subterranean message we get is that men are expected to be bold and courageous, and certainly in American culture that’s what advances – and as a choreographer, surely a bold voice is more likely to get noticed. Women are not brought up to fight for what they want.”
Cox’s initial tentative turn to choreography is thus archetypal.
“I started choreographing hesitantly,” Cox said “It’s strange that although I’m a very confident performer, there’s a high level of doubt in my choreography. But I would hate to give into my fears and doubts. If I did that I would never have built my company.”
Although there are numerous women choreographing works of contemporary ballet and running their own companies, it continues to be true that these companies are smaller, with smaller budgets, performing on smaller stages, to smaller audiences. Just browse the seasonal brochures of Jacob’s Pillow, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or any other venue and you will soon see who is presenting whom where (or go to www.dancenyc.org and look at research/studies for a more detailed analysis).
Cox in Philadelphia, Lohse in New York, and Ochoa in the Netherlands – like many others - speak of these issues very matter-of-factly: a curiosity, not a complaint. Brenner and Shaw of the Gender Project point out that there is no easy ‘solution’ for the situation and that nobody in particular is at fault. There are too many factors: societal expectations of boys versus girls, reliance on male management, the lack of little boys in ballet, the fact that giving birth – at least temporarily – takes women out of dance, and so much more.
Cox, herself, expects to give birth to her first child just around the time of the female choreographers project in July and her life in dance is becoming more difficult as the time approaches.
“I am trying to choreograph and I’m seven months pregnant,” says Cox. “It’s difficult. I’m not in my body like I am used to and can’t do movement as I’m used to, and sometimes I don’t have the energy to improve and build material. I’m going to see what happens once I do have a child.”We can only hope that all these women continue to creatively confront the current status quo in their contemporary creations. Perhaps being aware of the obstacles female ballet choreographers face is the first step in preparing ourselves and our students, both male and female, to help create a more even field for dancing in.
Jul 31, 2008 – By Mary Staub
In all likelihood, if you have ever taken a ballet class, about 85 percent of your fellow dancers were female. This tends to be true whether you are an eager 6-year-old conscientiously stretching your leg forth in tendu at the bar, a BFA student at the Ailey Studios in New York practicing a triple tour en l’air, or anywhere in between. Across all ages and state borders, in today’s field, the beauty of ballet still speaks more strongly to girls.
However, fast forward a few years, and look at who has gone on to choreograph, present on major stages, and run major companies, and the landscape looks dramatically different. Of 59 major ballet companies – those with budgets of more than $1 million – just 20 percent are run by women, according to data compiled by Dance/USA, a 26-year-old organization that serves as a national dance hub. The other 80 percent of our nation’s big ballet companies are run by men –look at San Francisco Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet throughout its history, to name a few.
“There is a definite difference between different communities and different genres of how gender breaks down,” says John Munger, director of Research and Information at Dance/USA. “But looked at overall there is definitely a degree of gender bias, and it is clearest in ballet.”
Furthermore, of the twelve women who do run big-budget ballet companies, eleven were company founders, according to Munger. This means that just one woman, Victoria Morgan at Cincinnati Ballet, has been appointed. By comparison, of the 47 men at the helm of these major companies, 41 have been appointed.
“My hypothesis is that these large ballet companies are past their founding generation,” says Munger. “They are driven by a hiring process at the top, not by the dance field, but by a board of directors who are highly corporate and highly conservative.”
Down on the ground in Philadelphia, Christine Cox, a former dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet, now co-runs and choreographs for her own small-budget contemporary ballet company, BalletX. Like many other former professional ballerinas, she has taken note of the imbalance on larger stages and has found her own way to respond – actively, engagingly, creatively.
“I’ve worked with lots of choreographers as a dancer and it stands out that throughout 20 years I can count on one hand the women,” Cox says with a tone of slight astonishment. “How is it that 90 percent in the studio are women and later you find so few women running companies? I’ve discussed this with others in the dance industry and it’s true on Broadway, everywhere. I thought it would be a compelling story to have an all-female choreographers program – and I’m not a woman activist trying to make a point here. This is just an observation.”
The female choreographers project also includes panel discussions with dancers, choreographers, researchers and audience members, who together will look for their own explanations for the imbalance. Similarly, Deborah Lohse in New York - who danced for Sacramento Ballet – has taken a proactive approach.
“I think I felt my observations gave me permission to be more aggressive,” Lohse said. “Creating my own company was the best way to address the imbalance.”
Lohse started choreographing and created her own contemporary ballet company, ad hoc Ballet, partly because she saw limited opportunities for ‘real women’ in most ballet companies. At 5’10,” she knew first-hand how difficult it could be to get jobs in ballet if you did not fit the physical ideal.
“I wanted to create works for women like those I know - not just those who can be cute, innocent, dainty - and give a female perspective on the female ballerina body,” Lohse says. “A lot of ballerinas still believe they need to be physically beautiful to get the job. I’m not interested in that, but want to tell stories about women who do not live up to the ideal, and show things that are seemingly ugly and show that they’re really quite beautiful.”
Lohse recently gained insight into certain discrepancies between how men and women seem to scout for students. On a recent arts exchange program at North Carolina School of the Arts, Lohse was the only female artistic director on a panel of directors and choreographers from across the country.
“Men and women do approach business differently,” Lohse says. “I watched how the others scouted for students and it was very different from how I was looking at students. They were looking more for technique and body type. I didn’t even know what I was looking for – I just knew I’d recognize it when I saw it.”
As much as people like to feign that in our 21st-century – supposedly progressive – society, gender equality is the norm, anyone with just a touch of truthfulness knows this is not so. Men and women are still met by different expectations and come upon different hurdles, this is as true in the wondrous world of ballet as amongst the corporate crowds of Wall Street.
“Our society is still more confident with men being in managerial positions – it’s our culture,” says Janis Brenner, a board member of the Gender Project, an eight-year study group that tried to get to the bottom of gender discrepancies in dance through interviews and surveys with dancers, choreographers, presenters and directors. “It’s a societal thing and the dance world is simply a micro-cosmos for the way the larger world works.”
The results of the Gender Project have brought no clear conclusions, but highlight multiple issues that factor into the overall equation. One is that men seem to ‘manage’ companies differently than women, and overall, their way of management is still seen as ‘better’ – more practical, less personal.
“Maybe men have more management skills and it is easier for them to manage 100 people as a choreographer,” says Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, one of the choreographers Cox is bringing to Philadelphia to create dances on BalletX for the all-female choreographers project. Ochoa, who danced with Rotterdam’s Scapino Ballet for seven years, is now a full-time freelance choreographer based in the Netherlands.
“What I notice as a choreographer when working with 100 people [is that] I am trying to make everyone happy. Men care that the business works well, not so much whether everyone is happy,” Ochoa said light-heartedly in a phone conversation from the Netherlands. “As long as the business is good and things look good, then for them things are good.”
Differential treatment of boys and girls in ballet starts at an early age and seems another reason men and women take on different roles later in life. BalletX’s Cox, like most women, realized this early on. She studied at the schools of the Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Pennsylvania Ballet, and at all schools, as can be expected, most of her classmates were female.
“When I was training to be a dancer the men stood out because there were so few of them,” Cox says very matter-of-factly. “There’s so much competition with women that it requires perfection, intense focus and drive. With men you need maybe 50 percent of the talent that females have, and focus. This is just our culture.”
Unless thousands of little boys suddenly start yearning for ballet, the preconceptions and treatment are unlikely to change. Lay-people continue to view boys who lean towards ballet as un-manly, which continues to discourage interest. Within the ballet world, in contrast, men are relied upon greatly. They are continuously encouraged, pushed to develop bold stances and voices and move forward.
“In ballet classes young women are taught to be obedient, while men are taught to jump and be bold,” says JoAnna Mendl Shaw, a co-founder of the Gender Project and teacher in the Ailey/Fordham BFA program in New York City. “The subterranean message we get is that men are expected to be bold and courageous, and certainly in American culture that’s what advances – and as a choreographer, surely a bold voice is more likely to get noticed. Women are not brought up to fight for what they want.”
Cox’s initial tentative turn to choreography is thus archetypal.
“I started choreographing hesitantly,” Cox said “It’s strange that although I’m a very confident performer, there’s a high level of doubt in my choreography. But I would hate to give into my fears and doubts. If I did that I would never have built my company.”
Although there are numerous women choreographing works of contemporary ballet and running their own companies, it continues to be true that these companies are smaller, with smaller budgets, performing on smaller stages, to smaller audiences. Just browse the seasonal brochures of Jacob’s Pillow, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or any other venue and you will soon see who is presenting whom where (or go to www.dancenyc.org and look at research/studies for a more detailed analysis).
Cox in Philadelphia, Lohse in New York, and Ochoa in the Netherlands – like many others - speak of these issues very matter-of-factly: a curiosity, not a complaint. Brenner and Shaw of the Gender Project point out that there is no easy ‘solution’ for the situation and that nobody in particular is at fault. There are too many factors: societal expectations of boys versus girls, reliance on male management, the lack of little boys in ballet, the fact that giving birth – at least temporarily – takes women out of dance, and so much more.
Cox, herself, expects to give birth to her first child just around the time of the female choreographers project in July and her life in dance is becoming more difficult as the time approaches.
“I am trying to choreograph and I’m seven months pregnant,” says Cox. “It’s difficult. I’m not in my body like I am used to and can’t do movement as I’m used to, and sometimes I don’t have the energy to improve and build material. I’m going to see what happens once I do have a child.”We can only hope that all these women continue to creatively confront the current status quo in their contemporary creations. Perhaps being aware of the obstacles female ballet choreographers face is the first step in preparing ourselves and our students, both male and female, to help create a more even field for dancing in.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Finding Movement Across the Globe
New York Sun
By MARY STAUB July 7, 2008
DURHAM, N.C. — It may be called the American Dance Festival, but it is no longer strictly an American affair. In its first incarnation in 1934, more than 100 students flocked to the festival school to learn about a uniquely American art form known as modern dance from early icons such as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. Since then, artists from countries including China, Egypt, Iraq, and Mozambique have become important building blocks.
"The challenge is how to keep the school present, growing, changing, open," the school's dean, Donna Faye Burchfield, said. "I want this to be a system that is flexible, that we can rethink, reimagine, redefine, and reinvent year after year."
Since 1984, the festival has hosted the International Choreographers Residency Program. Each year choreographers from diverse cultural backgrounds come to work on their own projects or, through an international commissioning program, create new works with ADF dancers. Many of these international artists take daily classes alongside younger students. Ms. Burchfield was one such young student more than 20 years ago and still remembers the impact of mingling with multiple cultures.
"After watching rehearsals or performances by people from 30 countries, you couldn't look at things the same way," Ms. Burchfield said. "Once you looked at those dances, you carried those experiences with you. The images became part of the conversation, and were in the visual, emotional, and kinesthetic landscape of the festival. They resonated into the evenings and back into the classrooms."
In addition to these activities in Durham, the ADF has taken its vision of dance abroad. International mini-ADFs and individual teaching engagements for ADF faculty have introduced young students in cities such as Moscow, Shanghai, and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to a more American approach to movement. In these exchanges, cultures and customs inform one another.
"It was always very clear — and it was relief to know — that we were not going abroad with the idea that we had the truth and light and knowledge of what dance should be," a teacher at the ADF since 1981, Gerri Houlihan, said. Ms. Houlihan has taught in countries as diverse as Paraguay, Poland, Korea, and Mongolia. "We were interested in sharing. And we were also interested in their cultures, their dance, their music — and in maybe cross-pollinating."
Not surprisingly, these encounters are never delimited to dance alone, and teachers say they learn as much as they teach.
"Working in Korea with women in 1990 or '91, I felt their placement was slightly back and behind themselves," Ms. Houlihan said. "I kept trying to get them over their center. I'd get them up one day, and they'd fall back the next. I couldn't understand why, until I realized I was looking at hundreds of years of women walking behind their men, slightly subservient. I was trying to change the way these women thought about themselves in two weeks — it wasn't going to happen overnight."
An informal choreographers' showing this past Saturday displayed the diversity of this year's program. Three Argentinean women crossed paths in staccato steps to a nuevo tango by the Gotan Project. And Andrey Zakharov from Russia brought a seemingly detached, yet profoundly grounded sense of humor to the auditorium. He tweaked expectations, twisted spectators' heads, partnered the stage, feigned jumping rope through audience aisles, and marveled at the building's domed ceiling.
By MARY STAUB July 7, 2008
DURHAM, N.C. — It may be called the American Dance Festival, but it is no longer strictly an American affair. In its first incarnation in 1934, more than 100 students flocked to the festival school to learn about a uniquely American art form known as modern dance from early icons such as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. Since then, artists from countries including China, Egypt, Iraq, and Mozambique have become important building blocks.
"The challenge is how to keep the school present, growing, changing, open," the school's dean, Donna Faye Burchfield, said. "I want this to be a system that is flexible, that we can rethink, reimagine, redefine, and reinvent year after year."
Since 1984, the festival has hosted the International Choreographers Residency Program. Each year choreographers from diverse cultural backgrounds come to work on their own projects or, through an international commissioning program, create new works with ADF dancers. Many of these international artists take daily classes alongside younger students. Ms. Burchfield was one such young student more than 20 years ago and still remembers the impact of mingling with multiple cultures.
"After watching rehearsals or performances by people from 30 countries, you couldn't look at things the same way," Ms. Burchfield said. "Once you looked at those dances, you carried those experiences with you. The images became part of the conversation, and were in the visual, emotional, and kinesthetic landscape of the festival. They resonated into the evenings and back into the classrooms."
In addition to these activities in Durham, the ADF has taken its vision of dance abroad. International mini-ADFs and individual teaching engagements for ADF faculty have introduced young students in cities such as Moscow, Shanghai, and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to a more American approach to movement. In these exchanges, cultures and customs inform one another.
"It was always very clear — and it was relief to know — that we were not going abroad with the idea that we had the truth and light and knowledge of what dance should be," a teacher at the ADF since 1981, Gerri Houlihan, said. Ms. Houlihan has taught in countries as diverse as Paraguay, Poland, Korea, and Mongolia. "We were interested in sharing. And we were also interested in their cultures, their dance, their music — and in maybe cross-pollinating."
Not surprisingly, these encounters are never delimited to dance alone, and teachers say they learn as much as they teach.
"Working in Korea with women in 1990 or '91, I felt their placement was slightly back and behind themselves," Ms. Houlihan said. "I kept trying to get them over their center. I'd get them up one day, and they'd fall back the next. I couldn't understand why, until I realized I was looking at hundreds of years of women walking behind their men, slightly subservient. I was trying to change the way these women thought about themselves in two weeks — it wasn't going to happen overnight."
An informal choreographers' showing this past Saturday displayed the diversity of this year's program. Three Argentinean women crossed paths in staccato steps to a nuevo tango by the Gotan Project. And Andrey Zakharov from Russia brought a seemingly detached, yet profoundly grounded sense of humor to the auditorium. He tweaked expectations, twisted spectators' heads, partnered the stage, feigned jumping rope through audience aisles, and marveled at the building's domed ceiling.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
At ADF's Ark Dance Studio, Not Your Average Student Dance
At the end of a week of all-day dancing, the students at the American Dance Festival need to express themselves and socialize. To do so, they don't go for drinks at a bar, or milk shakes at a diner. No — they improvise and dance some more.
New York Sun
By MARY STAUB July 1, 2008
The social magnet of Saturday nights at ADF is the Ark Dance Studio, a gabled old house, boarded with white, wooden planks. Students start to gather on the steps of this small, one-room, century-old building just as the sun is setting. The jam-packed weekly improvisation sessions have become one of the most popular weekend stops for many students, despite the sweltering heat and lack of air-conditioning.
"It's kind of like a social dance," a first-year ADF student from Virginia Beach, Aaron Burr Johnson, said. "What we do here is not meant to be performed — it's just for the participants, kind of like going to a club."
To watch the dancers in this high-ceilinged room is like watching a room full of ants, scurrying this way and that, telling personal stories that occasionally intersect. Almost every square foot appears in motion. In one corner a pianist, percussionist, and xylophonist jam alongside the dancers in a continuous wordless conversation.
"We're all feeding off each other," a 25-year-old dance teacher and ADF student, Alison Hart, said. "There are moments when you are totally internal. And sometimes you are absorbed partnering in a duet. Then suddenly you start moving across the whole floor with great strides and it's like the whole room is breathing together, using the same beat, the same rhythm."
These improvisational jams include a lot of contact, which becomes the starting point of other movement. The physical barriers here are lower than in most other social settings, and the intimacy among strangers fluctuates with every heartbeat — touching is okay; speaking is not.
"If somebody tries to make contact with you, there is a given understanding that you can either give into it or move away, and nobody's feelings will be hurt," Ms. Hart said. "When you do start partnering, it becomes very private and you're very vulnerable. You're sweaty, you smell, someone's head may suddenly be in your armpit, you put your weight on someone, and may find they let you fall to the ground."
It is precisely this unpredictability and the constantly shifting dynamics that attract so many students week after week. And it's not just students. Duke University faculty and dancers from some of ADF's performing companies are regulars, too — dancers from Shen Wei Dance Arts, Pilobolus Dance Theatre, and the Trisha Brown Dance Company have all made appearances this year. The language here is truly universal and resonates as much in Durham as in Buenos Aires, Eastern Europe, or beyond.
"Sometimes people come catapulting at your head; people can be reckless," Mr. Johnson said with amusement. "I've gotten mad sometimes, but not really vocally or physically. I probably just stomp loudly off the floor and am sure the other person doesn't even notice."
Such encounters can help dancers find their own voice. They explore motion and meaning in tandem with others. "I have fallen in love with improvisation because it allows me to form my own technique," Ms. Hart said. "Every feeling is a new and immediate feeling, and I can make my own decisions in the here and now. This is about as free as you can be in your body."
New York Sun
By MARY STAUB July 1, 2008
The social magnet of Saturday nights at ADF is the Ark Dance Studio, a gabled old house, boarded with white, wooden planks. Students start to gather on the steps of this small, one-room, century-old building just as the sun is setting. The jam-packed weekly improvisation sessions have become one of the most popular weekend stops for many students, despite the sweltering heat and lack of air-conditioning.
"It's kind of like a social dance," a first-year ADF student from Virginia Beach, Aaron Burr Johnson, said. "What we do here is not meant to be performed — it's just for the participants, kind of like going to a club."
To watch the dancers in this high-ceilinged room is like watching a room full of ants, scurrying this way and that, telling personal stories that occasionally intersect. Almost every square foot appears in motion. In one corner a pianist, percussionist, and xylophonist jam alongside the dancers in a continuous wordless conversation.
"We're all feeding off each other," a 25-year-old dance teacher and ADF student, Alison Hart, said. "There are moments when you are totally internal. And sometimes you are absorbed partnering in a duet. Then suddenly you start moving across the whole floor with great strides and it's like the whole room is breathing together, using the same beat, the same rhythm."
These improvisational jams include a lot of contact, which becomes the starting point of other movement. The physical barriers here are lower than in most other social settings, and the intimacy among strangers fluctuates with every heartbeat — touching is okay; speaking is not.
"If somebody tries to make contact with you, there is a given understanding that you can either give into it or move away, and nobody's feelings will be hurt," Ms. Hart said. "When you do start partnering, it becomes very private and you're very vulnerable. You're sweaty, you smell, someone's head may suddenly be in your armpit, you put your weight on someone, and may find they let you fall to the ground."
It is precisely this unpredictability and the constantly shifting dynamics that attract so many students week after week. And it's not just students. Duke University faculty and dancers from some of ADF's performing companies are regulars, too — dancers from Shen Wei Dance Arts, Pilobolus Dance Theatre, and the Trisha Brown Dance Company have all made appearances this year. The language here is truly universal and resonates as much in Durham as in Buenos Aires, Eastern Europe, or beyond.
"Sometimes people come catapulting at your head; people can be reckless," Mr. Johnson said with amusement. "I've gotten mad sometimes, but not really vocally or physically. I probably just stomp loudly off the floor and am sure the other person doesn't even notice."
Such encounters can help dancers find their own voice. They explore motion and meaning in tandem with others. "I have fallen in love with improvisation because it allows me to form my own technique," Ms. Hart said. "Every feeling is a new and immediate feeling, and I can make my own decisions in the here and now. This is about as free as you can be in your body."
Monday, June 30, 2008
American Dance Festival Preps the Next Generation
New York Sun
By MARY STAUB June 30, 2008
Durham, N.C. — The American Dance Festival, now in its 75th season, hosts big-name companies such as Paul Taylor, Martha Graham, and Pilobolus. But at least as important as these field leaders are the students who attend ADF. More than 400 dancers, anywhere between their late teenage years and early 30s, attend the festival to broaden their views and deepen their understanding of the art form's potential. They are tomorrow's potential leaders, and the exposure to dance that they get here may well influence the direction toward which they carry dance in the future.
"ADF is a great place to make connections and to find yourself more, not just in dance, but as a human being overall," a 20-year-old dancer from New York who used to study at the Martha Graham School, Navild Acosta, said. "It's a very social community, very open, with people from different walks of life and different places."
The range of students here is vast. Some dancers are still in high school, others are pursuing a bachelor of fine arts degree in college; some have danced professionally, and some are here working on a master of fine arts degree. What they all seem to have in common, though, is a certain openness — toward fellow students, various types of dance, and different teachers, performance styles, and approaches.
"It's about exploring and learning new things and expanding your idea of what dance can be," a 20-year-old local who first came to ADF four years ago, Leah Wilkes, said. "We're seeing between five and six companies per week, and there's a lot of dance we haven't previously been exposed to. For example, seeing a group like Eiko and Komo, who base their movement on butoh dancing — which is very slow movement — shows me an Eastern approach to dance that is new to me."
At ADF, unlike at most summer dance programs and intensive courses, students get to select their own classes and build a schedule based on their current interests. After an initial weekend of 30-minute sample classes, students decide what will most enhance their own development.
"It's not as regimented and structured as other places," Ms. Acosta said. "You can add a new taste to what you already know and form your experience. This allows people to rediscover themselves, or to discover part of themselves that they didn't know existed."
The presence of so many teachers, choreographers, and performers, with backgrounds ranging from West African dance to butoh to Sufism, forces dancers here to adapt to new dynamics, forms, and philosophies.
"One of the greatest things here is that I have to switch my mind quickly and work in many different styles, changing quickly, gaining versatility," a professional dancer from Beijing who spent years with the China National Song and Dance Ensemble and originally studied mainly traditional Chinese dance, Song Nan, said. "Compared to China, I find the technique might not be as strong here, but students here know how to dance. I see in them that dancing is about more than just technique; it's about the overall feeling of dance."
By MARY STAUB June 30, 2008
Durham, N.C. — The American Dance Festival, now in its 75th season, hosts big-name companies such as Paul Taylor, Martha Graham, and Pilobolus. But at least as important as these field leaders are the students who attend ADF. More than 400 dancers, anywhere between their late teenage years and early 30s, attend the festival to broaden their views and deepen their understanding of the art form's potential. They are tomorrow's potential leaders, and the exposure to dance that they get here may well influence the direction toward which they carry dance in the future.
"ADF is a great place to make connections and to find yourself more, not just in dance, but as a human being overall," a 20-year-old dancer from New York who used to study at the Martha Graham School, Navild Acosta, said. "It's a very social community, very open, with people from different walks of life and different places."
The range of students here is vast. Some dancers are still in high school, others are pursuing a bachelor of fine arts degree in college; some have danced professionally, and some are here working on a master of fine arts degree. What they all seem to have in common, though, is a certain openness — toward fellow students, various types of dance, and different teachers, performance styles, and approaches.
"It's about exploring and learning new things and expanding your idea of what dance can be," a 20-year-old local who first came to ADF four years ago, Leah Wilkes, said. "We're seeing between five and six companies per week, and there's a lot of dance we haven't previously been exposed to. For example, seeing a group like Eiko and Komo, who base their movement on butoh dancing — which is very slow movement — shows me an Eastern approach to dance that is new to me."
At ADF, unlike at most summer dance programs and intensive courses, students get to select their own classes and build a schedule based on their current interests. After an initial weekend of 30-minute sample classes, students decide what will most enhance their own development.
"It's not as regimented and structured as other places," Ms. Acosta said. "You can add a new taste to what you already know and form your experience. This allows people to rediscover themselves, or to discover part of themselves that they didn't know existed."
The presence of so many teachers, choreographers, and performers, with backgrounds ranging from West African dance to butoh to Sufism, forces dancers here to adapt to new dynamics, forms, and philosophies.
"One of the greatest things here is that I have to switch my mind quickly and work in many different styles, changing quickly, gaining versatility," a professional dancer from Beijing who spent years with the China National Song and Dance Ensemble and originally studied mainly traditional Chinese dance, Song Nan, said. "Compared to China, I find the technique might not be as strong here, but students here know how to dance. I see in them that dancing is about more than just technique; it's about the overall feeling of dance."
Thursday, June 12, 2008
An 'Aria' to Longing from Jennifer Muller/The Works
New York Sun
By MARY STAUB June 12, 2008
In a one-night gala performance on Tuesday, Jennifer Muller/The Works embodied the heartache and beauty of loss, longing, and loves unfulfilled in the premiere of Ms. Muller's new work, "Aria." The piece consists of seven vignettes, each set to a different Mozart aria, duettino, or trio from one of his operas: "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "The Magic Flute." Each vignette focuses on one emotional dynamic as distilled out of the passionate — often haunting — tone and lyrics of the accompanying music.
"Aria" is a term that in its original Italian usage meant "atmospheric, air," and implies something light. In The Works' rendition on Tuesday at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, it had weight. With delimited movement components and space defined by light, each vignette tries to flesh out and home in on the emotion that lies at its core.
In the first piece, "Dalla Sua Pace," a bookish man (a strong Pascal Rekoert) in suit and glasses seems to be searching for his own inner peace. He lurches forward, his arm shooting out as if to grab an elucidation in the distance. He turns the search elsewhere, his body taut with desperation, and hovers, his arms spanned wide, gazing down at the earth before collapsing without answer. The deep male voice of "Pace" seems to reverberate through him and magnify his being. He gazes up from the earth, rises and reaches for the heavens, seeking resolve from above.
Slowly, two ephemeral beings, draped in sheer, pale purple veils drift in for a duettino, "Canzonetta Sull'Aria." And the anonymous man disappears. Throughout "Aria," the seamless shifts from one vignette to the next allow the passions of the pieces to resonate into each other. If you have experienced loss, it seems to say, you know longing. And if you know longing, you know what love grows out of.
In "Canzonetta," the two female figures (Susanna Bozzetti and Seiko Fujita-Maekawa) seem to become one as they delicately, smoothly, and slowly shift their bodies and lean on each other for support — sometimes physically, and always emotionally. At times, they lean into or are nearly blown over by a powerful wind that gusts at their bodies from offstage. Their veils and hair fluttering in the wind, the two dancers are entirely in tune with one another. They seem to float on the two piercing voices of the sopranos throughout the piece. The dancers revel as the air caresses their skin, both supportively and threateningly.
Each vignette concentrates on one passionate, anguished struggle, whether between beings or just within one. For "Deh, Vieni Alla Finestra," a white column of fabric drops from the ceiling at the core of a wide circle of light at center stage. A male figure hastily climbs halfway up and seems to struggle against the pillar, its fabric interwoven with his body. He taunts the fabric as he spins outward, similar to a maypole dance, but here there is a living, shifting bond between man and object.
In "Porgi Amor," a sole figure seems to long for her love with increased intensity, and in the
playful "La Ci Darem La Mano," two parts of a couple play hard-to-get. She flaunts scoffing self-absorption with what borders on mime; he taunts with disinterest — an exasperating, yet in many ways honest, back-and-forth. In "Soil Ich Dich, Theurer, Nicht Mehr Sehn?" two lovers struggle to stay together as a third figure jealously cuts in between with arm slashes and devilish glee. All three figures wear striking satin blue tops with elongated sleeves, which they use to draw great arcs through the air — the lovers in an attempt to reach one another, the interloper in an effort to cut their ties.
"Aria" ends with "Ach, Ich Fuhl's (oh, how I endure / feel it)." Here, a regal figure (Elizabeth Disharoon) strides onto the stage, cloaked in yards upon yards of heavy, velvety red fabric, which she slowly lets drape behind her to the floor in a blood-red trail — of sorrow? Life? Love? Longing? She writhes in anguish, desperately reaches out for support, and contracts back into herself again and again with powerful grace. She ends up writhing herself into a fury that leaves her emotionally exposed as she grievously gathers her garment and trail and carries them offstage.
Tuesday night's performance began and ended with two earlier Muller works. In an excerpt from "Spores, Solitude & Summer Humming" (2000), the company developed into a powerful group force, continuously playing off each other. And in "Bounce" (2003), which closed the evening, their energy and precision of movement stood out. "Aria" will be a welcome addition to The Works' repertory roster during their three-week tour to China this fall.
By MARY STAUB June 12, 2008
In a one-night gala performance on Tuesday, Jennifer Muller/The Works embodied the heartache and beauty of loss, longing, and loves unfulfilled in the premiere of Ms. Muller's new work, "Aria." The piece consists of seven vignettes, each set to a different Mozart aria, duettino, or trio from one of his operas: "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "The Magic Flute." Each vignette focuses on one emotional dynamic as distilled out of the passionate — often haunting — tone and lyrics of the accompanying music.
"Aria" is a term that in its original Italian usage meant "atmospheric, air," and implies something light. In The Works' rendition on Tuesday at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, it had weight. With delimited movement components and space defined by light, each vignette tries to flesh out and home in on the emotion that lies at its core.
In the first piece, "Dalla Sua Pace," a bookish man (a strong Pascal Rekoert) in suit and glasses seems to be searching for his own inner peace. He lurches forward, his arm shooting out as if to grab an elucidation in the distance. He turns the search elsewhere, his body taut with desperation, and hovers, his arms spanned wide, gazing down at the earth before collapsing without answer. The deep male voice of "Pace" seems to reverberate through him and magnify his being. He gazes up from the earth, rises and reaches for the heavens, seeking resolve from above.
Slowly, two ephemeral beings, draped in sheer, pale purple veils drift in for a duettino, "Canzonetta Sull'Aria." And the anonymous man disappears. Throughout "Aria," the seamless shifts from one vignette to the next allow the passions of the pieces to resonate into each other. If you have experienced loss, it seems to say, you know longing. And if you know longing, you know what love grows out of.
In "Canzonetta," the two female figures (Susanna Bozzetti and Seiko Fujita-Maekawa) seem to become one as they delicately, smoothly, and slowly shift their bodies and lean on each other for support — sometimes physically, and always emotionally. At times, they lean into or are nearly blown over by a powerful wind that gusts at their bodies from offstage. Their veils and hair fluttering in the wind, the two dancers are entirely in tune with one another. They seem to float on the two piercing voices of the sopranos throughout the piece. The dancers revel as the air caresses their skin, both supportively and threateningly.
Each vignette concentrates on one passionate, anguished struggle, whether between beings or just within one. For "Deh, Vieni Alla Finestra," a white column of fabric drops from the ceiling at the core of a wide circle of light at center stage. A male figure hastily climbs halfway up and seems to struggle against the pillar, its fabric interwoven with his body. He taunts the fabric as he spins outward, similar to a maypole dance, but here there is a living, shifting bond between man and object.
In "Porgi Amor," a sole figure seems to long for her love with increased intensity, and in the
playful "La Ci Darem La Mano," two parts of a couple play hard-to-get. She flaunts scoffing self-absorption with what borders on mime; he taunts with disinterest — an exasperating, yet in many ways honest, back-and-forth. In "Soil Ich Dich, Theurer, Nicht Mehr Sehn?" two lovers struggle to stay together as a third figure jealously cuts in between with arm slashes and devilish glee. All three figures wear striking satin blue tops with elongated sleeves, which they use to draw great arcs through the air — the lovers in an attempt to reach one another, the interloper in an effort to cut their ties.
"Aria" ends with "Ach, Ich Fuhl's (oh, how I endure / feel it)." Here, a regal figure (Elizabeth Disharoon) strides onto the stage, cloaked in yards upon yards of heavy, velvety red fabric, which she slowly lets drape behind her to the floor in a blood-red trail — of sorrow? Life? Love? Longing? She writhes in anguish, desperately reaches out for support, and contracts back into herself again and again with powerful grace. She ends up writhing herself into a fury that leaves her emotionally exposed as she grievously gathers her garment and trail and carries them offstage.
Tuesday night's performance began and ended with two earlier Muller works. In an excerpt from "Spores, Solitude & Summer Humming" (2000), the company developed into a powerful group force, continuously playing off each other. And in "Bounce" (2003), which closed the evening, their energy and precision of movement stood out. "Aria" will be a welcome addition to The Works' repertory roster during their three-week tour to China this fall.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Shen Wei's Olympic Moves
New York Sun
By MARY STAUB June 9, 2008
When choreographer Shen Wei first arrived in New York from China 13 years ago, he had had limited exposure to the international culture of modern dance. At the time, the only modern dance company that existed in his homeland was his own, the Guangdong Modern Dance Company. Now, having founded his own New York company and enjoying commissions around the world, Mr. Shen is returning to China as the ambassador of that very culture, working as principal choreographer for the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.
Despite — or perhaps because of — his now global experience, Mr. Shen has met with multiple challenges working on this worldly event in Beijing.
"I am working with dancers from Beijing with classical and Chinese dance training," Mr. Shen said from his Beijing hotel in the Olympic Village one recent morning. "These are very good dancers, amazing, wonderful dancers, but everything I do is new to them. They have no modern dance style and I have to train them and teach them from the beginning and throughout."
Most members of the (mainly Chinese) Olympic creative team are new to Mr. Shen's more modern and international artistic approach.
"In New York I live and communicate with people where there is an international culture of art," Mr. Shen said. "But here I first have to talk to people about the global culture of art where there is also a modern way to do things, not only the Chinese traditional way. I want to show China today, the modern China. We don't only want to see dragons and lanterns, but want to meld modern culture with Chinese tradition."
Due to concerns over the country's human rights record, there have been numerous international protests over China's hosting the Olympics, and several heads of state have hinted at plans to boycott the opening ceremonies altogether. Rather than a cause for contention, though, Mr. Shen sees the festivities as a chance to unite people from different countries with differing views.
"Some people say, 'Oh, you're just working on the Olympics, on games,'" Mr. Shen said in a scoffing tone. "But actually this is a huge cultural process and project and it is important to be involved. We have people coming here from all over and from all different backgrounds to work together. There were many difficulties in the beginning, but in the end we have to learn to communicate."
Mr. Shen's earlier experiences, arriving in New York in his mid-20s with just a few words of English and no cultural understanding of America, helped prepare him for certain stumbling blocks. Initially, he was shocked by aspects of New York life. He was befuddled by the American obsession with schedules and datebooks filled to the hour months in advance. He was perplexed by youngsters who received pay from their parents for odd jobs around the house.
"I saw in families that some people paid money to their children for little jobs like cutting the grass," Mr. Shen said. "I really didn't understand this because in China you should do everything for family and never ask for anything in return."
He did not, however, condemn these foreign customs. "It takes a while to understand the way a different culture works so that you don't get upset about it," Mr. Shen said. "I wasn't going to return to China just because things are different. Slowly you see that there is a different lifestyle because there is a different background, and that one lifestyle is not better than the other."
Similarly, when touring foreign countries with Shen Wei Dance Arts, Mr. Shen enters each culture with interest and openness.
"We have our own way of thinking about a country before we go there, partly from the media and from what people say," Mr. Shen said. "We all have different lifestyles, politics, philosophy. Not only the way we grew up is right."
While preparing for the Olympics, Mr. Shen is also conducting research for part three of his 'Re' triptych, which began with "Tibet" (2006) and "Angkor Wat" (2007). Part three, "Silk Road," will have its premiere sometime in 2009 and will address some of the discrepancies Mr. Shen sees between the isolated China of the past and the country's need for an openness in the future.
"I am looking at how Western culture goes into China, and how Chinese culture goes to the West; at how Chinese culture has communicated with different cultures in the past and how China changes through different cultures," he said. "Every day I spend in China is information to help me understand the country."
By MARY STAUB June 9, 2008
When choreographer Shen Wei first arrived in New York from China 13 years ago, he had had limited exposure to the international culture of modern dance. At the time, the only modern dance company that existed in his homeland was his own, the Guangdong Modern Dance Company. Now, having founded his own New York company and enjoying commissions around the world, Mr. Shen is returning to China as the ambassador of that very culture, working as principal choreographer for the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.
Despite — or perhaps because of — his now global experience, Mr. Shen has met with multiple challenges working on this worldly event in Beijing.
"I am working with dancers from Beijing with classical and Chinese dance training," Mr. Shen said from his Beijing hotel in the Olympic Village one recent morning. "These are very good dancers, amazing, wonderful dancers, but everything I do is new to them. They have no modern dance style and I have to train them and teach them from the beginning and throughout."
Most members of the (mainly Chinese) Olympic creative team are new to Mr. Shen's more modern and international artistic approach.
"In New York I live and communicate with people where there is an international culture of art," Mr. Shen said. "But here I first have to talk to people about the global culture of art where there is also a modern way to do things, not only the Chinese traditional way. I want to show China today, the modern China. We don't only want to see dragons and lanterns, but want to meld modern culture with Chinese tradition."
Due to concerns over the country's human rights record, there have been numerous international protests over China's hosting the Olympics, and several heads of state have hinted at plans to boycott the opening ceremonies altogether. Rather than a cause for contention, though, Mr. Shen sees the festivities as a chance to unite people from different countries with differing views.
"Some people say, 'Oh, you're just working on the Olympics, on games,'" Mr. Shen said in a scoffing tone. "But actually this is a huge cultural process and project and it is important to be involved. We have people coming here from all over and from all different backgrounds to work together. There were many difficulties in the beginning, but in the end we have to learn to communicate."
Mr. Shen's earlier experiences, arriving in New York in his mid-20s with just a few words of English and no cultural understanding of America, helped prepare him for certain stumbling blocks. Initially, he was shocked by aspects of New York life. He was befuddled by the American obsession with schedules and datebooks filled to the hour months in advance. He was perplexed by youngsters who received pay from their parents for odd jobs around the house.
"I saw in families that some people paid money to their children for little jobs like cutting the grass," Mr. Shen said. "I really didn't understand this because in China you should do everything for family and never ask for anything in return."
He did not, however, condemn these foreign customs. "It takes a while to understand the way a different culture works so that you don't get upset about it," Mr. Shen said. "I wasn't going to return to China just because things are different. Slowly you see that there is a different lifestyle because there is a different background, and that one lifestyle is not better than the other."
Similarly, when touring foreign countries with Shen Wei Dance Arts, Mr. Shen enters each culture with interest and openness.
"We have our own way of thinking about a country before we go there, partly from the media and from what people say," Mr. Shen said. "We all have different lifestyles, politics, philosophy. Not only the way we grew up is right."
While preparing for the Olympics, Mr. Shen is also conducting research for part three of his 'Re' triptych, which began with "Tibet" (2006) and "Angkor Wat" (2007). Part three, "Silk Road," will have its premiere sometime in 2009 and will address some of the discrepancies Mr. Shen sees between the isolated China of the past and the country's need for an openness in the future.
"I am looking at how Western culture goes into China, and how Chinese culture goes to the West; at how Chinese culture has communicated with different cultures in the past and how China changes through different cultures," he said. "Every day I spend in China is information to help me understand the country."
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