Event listings are back on the right side of the page in a easier to read and more functional format. We’ve also added a listing of current exhibitions that allows you to see what exhibitions are happening on any given day. We haven’t been able to fix the newsletter yet…
Looking ahead….
Wu Tong, a founding member of the Silk Road Ensembles and front man for the Beijing-based rock band Lunhui performs with the sheng (笙), a Chinese mouth-blown free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes
MoMA’s New Directors/New Film series includes K, a retelling of Kafka’s The Castle in Inner Mongolia directed by Mongolian director Darhad Erdenibulag and Emyr ap Richard and produced by Jia Zhangke; and a shorts program that includes Blue and Red, an experimental look at Bangkok and Guangzhou by director Zhou Tao.
Cathy Erway, author of the new cookbook The Food of Taiwan, will lead a panel discussion that includes some of the biggest name in Asian cuisine on March 24. There will be a book release party on the March 25, and a pop-up dinner featuring Taiwanese pub food on March 29. Stay tuned for our post on the book and events.
Our final reminder that Concrete Flux‘s open call for submissions on the topic of suzhi (素质 /素質) has been extended to March 8.
We add listings to our one-time and short term event and ongoing exhibition calendars as we learn of them. If you know of anything or would like to contribute photos or an article, shoot us an email at beyondchinatown@gmail.com.
Upcoming Events
1) Ice Poison (冰毒) – Asia Society’s Homecoming Myanmar: A Midi Z Retrospective, a series tied to its current exhibition on Buddhist Art of Myanmar, kicks off with this film by Myanmar-born, Taiwan-based director Midi Z.
Midi Z. 2014. Taiwan/Myanmar. 95 min. DCP. English subtitled.
Cast: Wang Shin-Hong, Wu Ke-Xi
Xing-hong, a young farmer, can barely scrape by tending to the land with his father. Together, they visit one relative after another to borrow money to buy a moped so that Xing-hong can work driving passengers. One of his first customers is Sanmei, a woman who has returned home from China to Lashio, in northern Myanmar, to bury her grandfather. She hopes to earn enough money in order to bring her son in China to join her. In this part of Myanmar, few are untouched by the lucrative and menacing drug trade. When Sanmei and Xing-hong meet, a business deal is struck. (Asia Society)
Post-screening Q&A with director Midi Z and actress Wu Ke-Xi. Followed by a reception.
Review by Variety.
Friday, March 6, 6:30 PM
Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue
$8/members; $10/students, seniors; $12/non-members
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2) In Search of Arcadia – Opening Reception and 2nd Artist Collaboration – For Jessica Pi-Hua Hsu’s In Search of Arcadia Solo Exhibition opening reception, dancers An Chi Teng and Ya-Ting Chi are joined by Rukai (魯凱族) nose flute performer Joy Chi Wang.
Saturday, Marcy 7, 2 – 4 PM
Hwang Gallery, 39-10 Main Street, #303, Flushing
Free
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3) Bluebird Studio Offline Salon: A Conversation with “Rare Animals” – Chinese Young Artists in New York – The second volume of the “bird chirping” art salon invites two excellent New York-based emerging Chinese artists, Wang Xu & Pixy Yijun Liao to share their stories about art, life, their persistence in pursuing dreams, compromises they’ve made, and the hardships they’ve experienced.
Saturday, March 7, 3 – 5 PM
171 E. 84th Street, Apt. 4F
Free, but RSVP requested
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4) The Palace on the Sea / Return to Burma (归来的人 / 歸來的人) –
Return to Burma
Midi Z. 2011. Taiwan/Myanmar. 84 min. DCP. English subtitled.
Cast: Wang Shin-Hong, Lu Jiun
Myanmar holds its first parliamentary election in two decades. Many Myanmar natives living overseas return home in anticipation of peace and prosperity. Xing-hong, who has worked as a construction worker in Taiwan, arrives home to find his brother getting ready to go to work as a laborer in Malaysia. As he looks without much luck for business opportunities in his hometown, a sense of disillusionment and alienation pervades. It seems as though nothing much, after all, has changed. Midi Z’s directorial debut feature, Return to Burma, symbolizes the filmmaker’s personal homecoming in 2008, ten years after he moved to Taiwan to pursue an education and career. (Asia Society)
The Palace on the Sea
Midi Z. 2014. Taiwan/Myanmar. 15 min. DCP. English subtitled.
Cast: Wu Ke-Xi, Wang Shin-Hong
“The Palace on the Sea” was once a luxurious floating restaurant in Kaohsiung, a city in southern Taiwan. Now it’s an abandoned vessel sadly chained to the dock without a purpose. A woman in a Myanmar traditional dress makes a ghostly entrance and dances with the past. This experimental short makes an interesting counterpart to director Midi Z’s feature films, which adhere strictly to reality. (Asia Society)
Post-screening Q&A with director Midi Z. Post-screening Q&A with director Midi Z and actress Wu Ke-Xi.
Part of Homecoming Myanmar: A Midi Z Retrospective
Saturday, March 7, 5 PM
Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue
$8/members; $10/students, seniors; $12/non-members
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5) The Momenta Quartet: Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera – The Momenta Quartet returns to Flushing Town Hall for this dramatic and theatrical performance, joined by virtuoso pipa player Zhou Yi.
Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera (1994) is a five-movement work for string quartet and pipa, with water, metal, stone and paper. Inspired by childhood memories of the shamanistic “ghost operas” of Chinese peasant culture, it calls on the spirits of Bach, Shakespeare, ancient folk tradition, and earth/nature. (Flushing Town Hall)
Report from SinoVision:
Sunday, March 8, 2 PM
Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Boulevard, Flushing
$15/General Admission; $10/Members, Students
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6) History and Development of the News Business in China (In Chinese) – Renwen Society’s latest talk.
‘The newspaper, as the first of its kind in the world, appeared in China one thousand years ago during the Song Dynasty. Dr. Wang Runze, Co-Director of the Confucius Institute at Columbia University and professor in the School of Journalism at the Renmin University in Beijing, will trace the history and the development of the news business in China and its influence by Western news reporting. (Renwen Society).
See the event page for the full description in Chinese.
Sunday, March 8, 2 PM
China Institute, 125 E. 65th St.
Free
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7) The Spread and Transformation of Urban Life – Joseph R. Allen, Professor in the Asian Languages and Literatures Department at the University of Minnesota, discusses the spread and transformation of urban life as part of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute’s Modern Taiwan Lecture Series
Tuesday, March 10, 4:10 – 6 PM
Schermerhorn Hall, Room 963, Columbia University
Free
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8) China’s Bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games – China formally announced its bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in January. At first blush, it’s an unusual proposition: Chongli, the proposed site for the Olympic Village and Nordic skiing events is 150 miles from Beijing, and Yanqing, the town suggested for Alpine competitions, gets about two inches of snow annually. Join Susan Brownell, a world-renowned authority on Chinese sports and the Olympics, as she discusses the significance of the bid for China, what it says about China and about the rest of the world.
Susan Brownell is a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, currently a visiting professor at the Institute of Sinology, Heidelberg University. Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People’s Republic, based on her experiences as a college track and field athlete in China in the 1980s, is the first book on Chinese sports based on fieldwork by a Westerner. She is also the author of Beijing’s Games: What the Olympics Mean to China (2008).
(NCUSCR)
Thursday, March 12, 5:30 – 7 PM
Dorsey & Whitney, 51 West 52nd Street
Free, but RSVP required by March 10.
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9) What is the State of Art Investment in China and What are Chinese Collectors Buying Today? – China Institute, in partnership with Herrick, is pleased to present an evening with China’s auction industry leader Hu Yanyan. An expert in the China auction market for more than 20 years, Ms. Hu is now the Director and President of China Guardian Auctions, the fourth-largest auction house in the world. She is also the Chairwoman and CEO of China Guardian (Hong Kong) Auction Co. Ltd. She will share her unique insights and perspectives on the China art market, Chinese collectors, as well as the opportunities of Chinese art investments. (China Institute)
Thursday, March 12, 6 – 8 PM
Herrick, 2 Park Avenue
$40/member; $65/non-member
Ongoing Films and Shows
1) Semele – A centuries-old Ming Dynasty temple shares the stage with an inflatable puppet, debaucherous monks, sumo wrestlers, and one aroused donkey in the Canadian Opera Company’s East-meets-West presentation of Semele, George Frideric Handel’s sublime operatic adaptation of the titular Greek myth. Chinese visual artist Zhang Huan—renowned for his provocative interrogations of eastern culture—makes his directorial debut, transforming the restored 17-ton temple into an altar, palace, crematory, and heaven to tell of the karmic fate of Semele (performed by Jane Archibald), whose attempt to trade sexual favors for divinity goes up in flames. (BAM) Costume Design by Han Feng
March 4 – 10
BAM, Peter Jay Sharp Building, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Tickets start at $35
2) The Legend of Mulan by The Hong Kong Dance Company – The Legend of Mulan re-tells a tale of the globally recognized and iconic heroine from ancient China, who was originally presented in a Chinese poem known as the Ballad of Mulan dating to the fifth century. Mulan, a peasant girl, disguised herself as a man to join the army in place of her aged father. She fought for a decade and gained much respect. She gave up a position at court and retired to her hometown instead. Traditional Chinese virtues are examplified through the unusual adventures and touching story of Mulan, who shows extraordinary courage when it comes to protecting her country and family. A heroine with moral courage and intelligence, Mulan’s exceptional wisdom and vision transcend fame and fortune. (David H. Koch Theater)
March 5 – 8
David H. Koch Theater, 20 Lincoln Center (south side of the Lincoln Center Plaza, at Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street)
Tickets start at $22
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3) The Subtle Body – Megan Campisi’s 90-minute historical comedy in English/Mandarin with subtitles. Developed by Gold No Trade in collaboration with artists in Shanghai, the play concerns different interpretations of the human heart. It’s 1707: Charlotte Floyer accompanies her eccentric husband John (a historical British doctor) to China to learn about Chinese medicine’s understanding of the human heart. But when Charlotte falls in love with the couple’s translator and he asks her to join his household as his second wife (an accepted tradition in historical China), she and his first wife must reconsider their own understandings of the human heart.
February 12 – March 1
59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th Street
Performances are sold out, but stand-by tickets may be available.
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4) The World of Extreme Happiness – Unwanted from the moment she’s born, Sunny is determined to escape her life in rural China and forge a new identity in the city. As naïve as she is ambitious, Sunny views her new job in a grueling factory as a stepping stone to untold opportunities. When fate casts her as a company spokeswoman at a sham PR event, Sunny’s bright outlook starts to unravel in a series of harrowing and darkly comic events, as she begins to question a system enriching itself by destroying its own people. By Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, and directed by Eric Ting.
February 3 – March 29
New York City Center Stage I, 131 West 55th Street
$85/Admission
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6) 12 Golden Ducks (12金鸭) – Devastated by a love affair, former in-demand gigolo Future Chang retreats to Thailand, leading the life a dissolute. Thanks to the intervention of his high school teacher, Mr. Lo, Future summons the courage to return to Hong Kong. With the help of his friend Ricky, a gym trainer, he works hard to get back into shape, determined to make a comeback in the “duck” (male escort) trade. Sequel to the # 1 hit of last year, Golden Chicken$$$
This “infectiously funny romp” received 4 stars from The South China Morning Post.
Opens at AMC Empire 25 on February 27
Exhibitions
Closing soon:
Polit-Sheer-Form-Office: Polit Sheer Form! (Queens Museum, 3/8)
Jessica Pi-Hua Hsu (徐畢華 / 徐毕华): In Search of Arcadia (Hwang Gallery, 3/3 – 3/22)
Dynamic Writing: A Century of Calligraphy (Flushing Town Hall, 2/22 – 3/22)
Opening and newly added:
Transformation & Variation / Face . Book (456 Gallery, 3/5 – 4/3)
2015 Triennial: Surround Audience (New Museum, 2/25 – 5/4)
Fertility, Blessings, and Protection – Taiwanese and Asian Cultures of Baby Carrier (Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University, 3/11 – 7/11)
The View of Formosa’s Landscape from Photographers (Taipei Cultural Center of TECO, 3/13 – 5/15)
Additionally, Made in Company gallery will be an exhibitor at The Armory Show at Pier 94 and will present the works of Wang Sishun and Xu Zhen (Pier 94, 3/5 – 3/8)
Let us know if there’s something people need to see.
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Visit the exhibition calendar (http://ow.ly/pxe9o) for details for the following shows below. As always, check the museum or gallery’s website for hours of operation. We’ve noted exhibitions for which a review has been published.
Polit-Sheer-Form-Office: Polit Sheer Form! (Queens Museum, 3/8)
Jessica Pi-Hua Hsu (徐畢華 / 徐毕华): In Search of Arcadia (Hwang Gallery, 3/3 – 3/22)
Dynamic Writing: A Century of Calligraphy (Flushing Town Hall, 2/22 – 3/22)
Gu Zhongsheng: Gradually Fog Up (Schoolhouse Art Gallery, 2/12 – 3/28)
Lan Zhenghui (蓝正辉 / 藍正輝): Re-thINK (Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, 2/13 – 3/28)
The Art of the Chinese Album (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 3/29) (WSJ Review)
The Chinese Photobook (Aperture Gallery, 2/11 – 4/2)
Transformation & Variation / Face . Book (456 Gallery, 3/5 – 4/3)
Mao Yan at Pace Gallery (3/6 – 4/4)
Anicka Yi: You Can Call Me F (The Kitchen, 512 W 19th St, 3/5 – 4/11)
Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion (New York Historical Society, 4/19)
Mao’s Golden Mangoes and the Cultural Revolution (China Institute, 4/26) (review)
Shen Shaomin (沉少民 / 沈少民) : Handle with Care (小心轻放 / 小心輕放) (Klein Sun Gallery, 3/7 – 5/2)
Yan Shanchun (严善錞): West Lake (西湖) (Chambers Fine Art, 2/26 – 5/9)
The View of Formosa’s Landscape from Photographers (Taipei Cultural Center of TECO, 3/13 – 5/15)
Fertility, Blessings, and Protection – Taiwanese and Asian Cultures of Baby Carrier (Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University, 3/11 – 7/11)
Image by Flickr user Jasmine. Licensed through Creative Commons