Tracking The White Shadow

Immersive Performance and Culinary Experience

April 6, April 13, April 27, May 4 and May 11, 3-6 pm, 2019

Curated/Designed by: Han Qin, Lynn Hai

Performer: Izumi Ashizawa (special guest), Can Wang, Lu Dai, Jingjing Han, and Zhiwei Wu

Two or three dancers,
Switch positions.
One becomes shadow and one becomes light.
Light casts shadow upon the paper and leaves white silhouettes.

Shadow moves, and silhouettes move.
Light glows,
Quietly, slowly, peacefully,
Outlines shadow.
Blue images appear on paper.

Shadow moves,
Expands, and floats away.
White silhouettes freeze shadow’s traces
By layers, by segments,
As ethereal as feathers.

Poem / Han Qin

The immersive performance Tracking the White Shadow and culinary experience on Saturday afternoons during artist Han Qin’s solo exhibition Ethereal Evolution will be a feast of art with creative visual, auditory and gustatory experience.

Tracking the White Shadow poetically translates Han Qin’s inspiration and creative process into dance performance. Han’s experiences as an immigrant to the United States have driven her to continuously ponder the interrelation between herself and the world, and seeking a dynamic stability among the transfer of her identities. She began her interdisciplinary practice with musicians and dancers from the Ethereal Evolution series, during which she juxtaposes ideas about scale, causality, and the tradition of drawing with light and shadow. Han invited dancers to share their stories as immigrants with body movements on the pre-coated Pi paper and expose the process to light to create large cyanotypes on paper. She wanted to focus on sociology impact with art-making in which she would explore her migration experience and emotion.

To show the process of making, Han Qin and curator Hai Liang co-designs Tracking the White Shadow, a series of performances that take place on Saturday afternoons during the exhibition. In the performance, improvisational dancers perform on the pre-located paper and exposing their body movement to light. By allowing the action of the light to create silhouettes, blurry white shadows appear on the blue paper. Compared with still artworks, immersive performance is a more dynamic art form that freezes the fourth dimension - time. Performers could also have improvisational creations and respond to the surroundings. In this way, every performance is unique and non-repetitive. The audience will travel through the space as dancers move freely and interact with the paper, and witness the creation of a cyanotype on paper. The performers enter gently, and the audience naturally blends into it. Their parallel and intertwined relationship begins and ends naturally. In the exhibition space, the still and dynamic artworks will jointly constitute the best visual expression of Ethereal Evolution.

The performance is also accompanied by a special culinary experience in collaboration with Junzi Kitchen’s chef Lucas Sin. Sin’s practice focuses on the exploration of the change of seasons and the communication between cultures through food. The three-course menu is inspired by the exhibition and enriches the visitors’ experience of art.

Text / Lynn Hai

Cooperative Organization - Junzi Kitchen

Junzi is a new fast-casual restaurant dedicated to creating access to honest Chinese food through its menu, events, and private dining experiences. Featuring Northern Chinese chun bings and noodle bowls, Junzi combines Chinese culinary traditions and new ideas with a mission to connect more people and cultures through food. Founded in 2015 by a team of Chinese graduate students at Yale University, Junzi has locations in both New Haven and New York City. Located near Columbia University in Morningside Heights and close to New York University in Greenwich Village (introduced in July 2018), the team will soon open their first Bryant Park restaurant in April 2019.

* Immersive performance Tracking the White Shadow is conceived by artist Han Qin and curator Lynn Hai. Music: Matthew Barnson’s Vanitas; Performer: Izumi Ashizawa (special guest), Can Wang, Lu (Shirley) Dai, Jingjing Han, and Zhiwei Wu. Visual design: Lin Jing, DoDo Xinyu Zhang. Special thanks to Amy Yopp Sullivan for her early stage development work, and to previous dancers Wing Kar Chin, Ashtyn Muzio, Lydia Myers, Destiny Terry, Kelly Smith and Shuting Tang.