Posts from the “Art” Category

Mark Rothko: The Color Field Paintings

Posted on September 9, 2017

Untitled, 1956

“I am not interested in relationships of color or form or anything else,” Mark Rothko told Selden Rodman for Conversations with Artists, published in 1961. “I am interested in only expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on…”

His intense, apocalyptic vision of humanity may have been formed in his youngest years, as a child born in Dvinsk, Russia, in 1903. Growing up in an anti-religious family of Jewish origin in the final years of the Tsarist regime, Rothko (ne Markus Rothkowitz) left his native land at the age of 10 and emigrated to the United States.

Like his father before him, Rothko was a Marxist, passionate about workers’ rights. He received a scholarship to Yale, which he entered 1921. He found the bougie atmosphere of the Ivy League to be both elitist and racist, eventually dropping out at the end of his sophomore year.

He moved to New York in 1923, and decided to take up art after visiting the Art Students League. The 1920s were a major decade for Modern art, as Dada, Cubism, Supermatism, and Surrealism had liberated the artist from the confines of Western art that had them hemmed up with aesthetic and ideological concerns that had dominated the form since the Renaissance.

No. 14 (Untitled), 1955

Free from the strictures of representation and narrative, Rothko went his own way, forsaking both the traditions of painting as well as his family’s expectations that he pursue a more lucrative career. In 1940, he adopted the name “Mark Rothko” in an attempt to avoid the rabid anti-Jewish sentiment that had sprouted across Europe and throughout America.

As an artist, Rothko came into his own as he discovered the inherent power of pure aesthetics to stimulate emotions and mediate feeling. He intuitively understood the necessity of mythology and the way in which it worked to tap into the ever-flowing undercurrents of the collective unconscious. It was here, in this ethereal netherworld, that Rothko’s paintings began to manifest and achieve their goals.

The month, Rothko returns the for once again with Rothko: The Color Field Paintings, a sumptuous new monograph from Chronicle, along with Mark Rothko: Reflection, an exhibition of 11 masterpieces on view at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, September 24, 2017–July 1, 2018.

The glory of Rothko’s work is how timeless they are, how they both capture the ethos of the era in which they were made and transcend that specificity, so that they are eternally new and fresh, as much as radical now as they were then. It may be that this is due to the fact that no matter how much derivative work they inspired, nothing but nothing even comes close. The imitators pale and fade away in the presence of Rothko’s genius.

Yellow and Blue (Yellow, Blue on orange), 1955

The human dimensionality of the work becomes a portal that transports us to another realm that exists both inside and outside ourselves. The works are as exhilarating as they are stilling, vibrant paths to the center of that which exists beyond words, the ineffable, ephemeral essence of God.

“The classic works, or sectionals, are Rothko’s signature works, and are well known for the deep feelings they evoke and their ability to articulate the language of the sublime,” his son Christopher Rothko writes in the foreword of Rothko: The Color Field Paintings.

He continues: “These works touch us because they know exactly ‘where we live.’ They speak to us, imparting a message akin to ‘this is what it feels like to feel this way.’ They are essentially the painted expression of what it is to be human and alive, filled with joy and sorrow, aspiration and despair, fears and hopes, and fears about our hopes…. My father had summoned his full voice—bold, impassioned, and confident, and, if occasionally bombastic, never strident or shouted.”

The paintings are operatic in nature and symphonic in sensation, transcending the visual realm, delving below the depths of the surface of things, which we truly understand when we use our eyes to perceive, rather than simply see.

All artwork: © Mark Rothko

Categories: Art

Jeanine Michna-Bales: Through Darkness to Light – Photographs Along the Underground Railroad

Posted on September 6, 2017

Stopover. Frogmore Plantation, Concordia Parish, Louisiana, 2014

Last Fall, I found myself sitting alone in a private coach driving along a quiet road through Fort Myers, Florida. It was late in the evening, and the sky had gone dark. There were no buildings, no traffic, and very few street lights as the coach drove along through the backwoods and deep thickets of the town. I gazed out the window and was suddenly a vision called from somewhere deep within the land overcame me. I shuddered but couldn’t unsee the invisible traces of history.

I keep these things to myself. Most people are not trying to hear messages without “evidence,” and even then… Shadowboxing with lies is a losing proposition and I quit that game. I simply see who said what now, flag, and keep it moving.

But when I came across Jeanine Michna-Bales’ photographs, Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad, the vision came tumbling back. The photographs, published in a book from Princeton Architectural Press, are currently on view at the Wyandotte County Historical Museum in Bonner Springs, Kansas, and will be traveling around the nation through 2020.

Resting Place. Church Hill, Mississippi, 2015

On the Way to the Hicklin House Station. San Jacinto, Indiana, 2013

Fifteen years ago, Michna-Bales received the message and began to see, imagining in her mind’s eye what the journey along the Underground Railroad looked like to those who made the trip. She began to do the work, researching the details of the routes, scouting locations by day, and then, finally photographing them at night.

For the project, she traced a route from the cotton plantations of central Louisiana through the cypress swamps of Mississippi, across the plains of Indiana, and north to Canada, traveling nearly 1,400 miles to freedom. Michna-Bales shows us the American countryside as was then, as it is now, and in doing so, she reveals that time itself is an illusion. As William Faulkner understood, “The past is never dead. It is not even past.”

Michna-Bales’ photographs are haunting elegies to the horrors that hide in plain sight, histories of trauma and exploitation that only the spiritually corrupt can ignore and the intellectually dishonest can diminish or deny. Her work operates on several levels at the same time. In the darkness there is cover, but there is also constant threat, where innocence and serenity lies alongside four centuries of brutality and genocide. There is heroism and bravery, courage and nobility—as well as the very real awareness that the greatest threat to this nation is homegrown, that the real terrorists pledge allegiance to the flag and will do its bidding without conscience or soul.

Moonlight Over the Mississippi. Tensas Parish, Louisiana, 2014

Look for the Gray Barn Out Back. Joshua Eliason Jr. barnyards and farmhouse, with a tunnel leading underneath the road to another station, Centerville, Indiana, 2013

Michna-Bales’ photographs are the embodiment of W.E.B. DuBois’ double consciousness: of you can only see a lyrical landscape, you do not know the truth about America. If you cannot feel the curious combination of fear and valor, you might be out of touch with the history of the nation and the debt it has yet to pay.

Through Darkness to Light is one of the most searing bodies of work made in recent years, eloquent in its ability to capture all that no longer has body or voice but blows through the air far and wide, always present even if you refuse to look.

I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now I was free.
There was such a glory over everything,
the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields,
and I felt like I was in heaven.
—Harriet Tubman

Within Reach. Crossing the St. Clair River to Canada just south of Port Huron, Michigan, 2014

All photos © Jeanine Michna-Bales.

Categories: Art, Books, Photography

Marvin E. Newman: The XXL Collector’s Edition

Posted on September 4, 2017

Photo: Coney Island, 1953. © Marvin. E Newman 2017 Howard Greenberg Gallery / Courtesy of TASCHEN.

Photo: Wall Street, 1958. © Marvin. E Newman 2017 Howard Greenberg Gallery / Courtesy of TASCHEN.

Now in his 89th year, American photographer Marvin E. Newman is receiving his due as one of the finest street photographers of the twentieth century. His self-titled monograph, just released as a XXL Collector’s Edition from Taschen showcases his vibrant collection of cityscapes made in New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles—as well as in the Heartland of the nation and the outskirts of Alaska between the years 1950 and 1983.

Born in the Bronx in 1927, Newman studied photography and sculpture at Brooklyn College with Walter Rosenblum. He joined the Photo League in 1948 before moving to Chicago the following year to study with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design. “They taught you to keep your mind open and go further, and always respond to what you are making,” Newman remembered.

It was here in Chicago that Newman began to shoot in color film, doing so at a time long before the medium was recognized. His comfort with color is evident throughout his work, as it becomes a harmonizing force and a whirlwind of energy and emotion as much as light itself.

After obtaining his degree in 1952, Newman returned to New York, which was undergoing a major change in the years immediately following the war. At the same time, the artist’s eye as developing and transforming his experience of life. He observed, “I was beginning to see the world in photographic terms. You start to see everything as a rectangle of some sort and see things that you feel are just made to be photographed.”

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Photo: Broadway, 1954. © Marvin. E Newman 2017 Howard Greenberg Gallery / Courtesy of TASCHEN.

Photo: Broadway, 1954. © Marvin. E Newman 2017 Howard Greenberg Gallery / Courtesy of TASCHEN.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Feature Shoot, Photography

Claudia Andujar: Tomorrow Must Not Be Like Yesterday

Posted on September 1, 2017

Claudia Andujar, Urihi-a, 1974 [2016], Inkjet print, 90 x 134 cm
Claudia Andujar / Courtesy Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil

The Yanomami of Brazil live deep inside the rainforests of the Amazon. They have lived for thousands of years on their own, free from the imperialist forces that have punished the globe. But invariably, it was only a matter of time before they were invaded too.

They survived the slave-hunting expeditions of the Spanish and Portuguese made between 1630 and 1720 that decimated other complex tribes living along the river, continuing to inhabit some 9.6 million hectares, in what has become the largest forested indigenous lands in the world.

In 1955, Swiss photographer Claudia Andujar arrived in Brazil, unable to speak Portuguese but able to communicate with her pictures. She quickly began traveling into the interior, making contact with native groups. In 1971, she reached the Yanomami, and experience that changed her life.

She became an advocate and an activist, using her photography to communicate with the outside world, to tell the story of the Yanomami and their challenges in the face of imperialist policies threatens to destroy their way of life. Her photographs have been collected in Tomorrow Must Not Be Like Today, just released from Kerber.

In the book there is a curious sequence of portraits, called Maracados, where subjects were placards bearing numbers. Andujar explains, “The Yanomami do not use names. They have large families, and so everyone is referred to by their family relationship: father, mother, brother, and so on. We created health cards, and I took their pictures. We hung signs around their necks to be able to identify each of them on the health cards.”

But there was something more, something deeper and more haunting that speaks to the photographer’s personal investment in this truth. Andujar, who was born in 1931, recounts her childhood in Transylvania, when the Nazis invaded in 1944, “No one survived from my fathers side,” she reveals. “In the camps, numbers were tattooed on their arms. These were the marcados para morrer [marked to died]. What I was trying to do with the Yanomami was to mark them to live, to survive.”

For her efforts, the Brazilian government had her removed from the land in 1978, in order to prevent her advocating for Yanomami rights to the free world. It wasn’t until 1992 that the Yanomami’s right to their ancestral territories was recognized by the government.

Through it all, Andujar has continued along her path, working to bring the plight of the Yanomami to the public eye. She explains her mission as one that not only protects the people, but the planet as well, a poignant issue raised during a time where climate change is proving to be a global level extinction event.

“For at least the last 50 years, the Brazilian government, especially during the military dictatorship, has wanted to occupy the Amazonas region, cutting down trees to exploit the soil, the wood, and it is the same today. The government also discusses liberalizing mining, which would be a disaster,” she reveals.

“My work, my photography, addresses the problem. And I certainly strongly believe that you have to maintain a balance. You cannot develop a country at all costs. The biggest problem in the Yanomami territory is currently the invasion of their land, the extraction of minerals and gold, and I am opposed to felling trees to use the land for agriculture,” Andujar adds. “I am very concerned about all of this, and I pay a lot of attention to what the Yanomami say. They say we are approaching the end of the world. My work is all about how to prevent the end of the world.”

Godspeed.

Claudia Andujar, Metrópole, 1974 [2016], Inkjet print, 100 x 150 cm
Claudia Andujar / Courtesy Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil

Categories: Art, Books, Photography

Olivia Locher: I Fought the Law

Posted on August 31, 2017

Photo: In Texas it is illegal for children to have unusual haircuts. Photography Olivia Locher, published by Chronicle Books 2017

“Hey, do you know it’s illegal to have an ice cream cone in your back pocket in Alabama?” The question, posed by a friend during a photoshoot, kept echoing in Olivia Locher’s mind for months. Eventually, she hit up the Internet to check it out for herself, only to discover that this law, made during the nineteenth century, extended to the states of Kentucky and Georgia as well. Word on the street had it that thieves pulled this stunt in order to lure horses away, then plead innocent by claiming, “I didn’t steal him. He followed me!”

Ahh, those crafty Southerners – what will they think of next? Locher launched an investigation, delving into the criminal codes across the United States, digging up the dirt for I Fought the Law: Photographs by Olivia Locher of the Strangest Laws from Each of the 50 States, a new book releasing from Chronicle on September 5, which will also be exhibited at Steven Kasher Gallery, New York, from September 14 through October 21, 2017.

Although many people would like to believe that laws are written to uphold moral, ethical principles, this is patently untrue. In many cases, they are written to reflect the biases of those who once wielded the power to write the rules. The USA, being a nation dedicated to states’ rights, has any number of bizarre, quirky, obscure laws on the books that few know about – as well as a host of urban legends that have captivated the public’s imagination.

For I Fought the Law, Locher compiled her favourite flagrant criminal codes and staged a series of charming photo shoots that embrace peculiar peccadillos from Arizona’s law against having more than two dildos in the house to Ohio, where it was once illegal to disrobe in front of a portrait of a man. Locher speaks with us about creating a tongue-in-chic portrait of the American outlaw.

Read the Full Story at Dazed Digital

Categories: Art, Books, Dazed, Photography

Happy Birthday Helen Levitt

Posted on August 31, 2017

Photo: Helen Levitt, Untitled, New York City,1972

It was a coup, in every sense of the word. Helen Levitt was giving an interview. Adam Gopnik at The New Yorker was the lucky cat who received the invitation to Helen’s fifth-floor walk up apartment on 12th Street.

I had not yet met her, but we had spoken on the phone, and I could hear her Bensonhurst accent as she cut things down to size. The story was published in November 2001, and the city as still reeling from the destruction of the World Trade Center.

I, too, lived on 12th Street that year. I knew the horror of being close, but not too close, to it all, just outside the deepest circle of hell. It was visceral, on levels its impossible to articulate, particularly for any True Yorker who had lived through the government warfare under benign neglect, crack, and AIDS.

The interview was done in tandem with the release of “Crosstown,” Helen’s magnum opus that was just released from powerHouse. It was a picture of New York that insiders know: life on the street, perhaps the best thing about this town.

Gopnik sang her praises, calling her New York’s poet photographer laureate. And to be fair, he wasn’t wrong. I just fell down a Tumblr rabbit hole of her work. But, there was another Helen, the one I wish I got to know, the broad from Brooklyn, ya dig.

I can still hear her scratchy voice in my mind’s ear, as Gopnik broached the subject of 9/11. It sounded like he was looking for guidance and wisdom, something to help the readers of the magazine deal with the trauma that had devastated their daily lives. Who better than a lifelong New Yorker who had reached her nonagenarian year to offer a word of solace?

Gopnik asked Helen what she thought New Yorkers should do in the wake of the tragedy.

“I think yous should get the hell out,” Helen said, succinctly.

Happy Birthday Helen Levitt ~*~ thanks for the memories !

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, Art, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Painting

“Art in Ad Places” Transforms City Sidewalks into a Gallery

Posted on August 23, 2017

Photo: Hope and Promise by Jamel Shabazz. Photo by Luna Park. Courtesy of Art in Ad Places.

“People are taking the piss out of you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are ‘The Advertisers’ and they are laughing at you,” Banksy wrote in his 2004 book, Cut It Out.

People intuitively sense this kind of neg, their egos becoming more increasingly defensive and critical while simultaneously entertaining the lengths advertisers will go to win them over. In the court of public opinion, the attention we are willing to give them serves as costs paid.

Art in Ad Places, a New York City public service campaign, understands this, and has taken the high road by transforming the landscape with public art. Every week throughout 2017, the organization partners with a contemporary artist, installing their works in payphone kiosks across the city in order to reimagine the way we see the world.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Photo: Caterpillar by Mab Graves. Photo by Luna Park. Courtesy of Art in Ad Places.

Photo: HOODED by Myles Loftin. Photo by Luna Park. Courtesy of Art in Ad Places.

Categories: Art, Crave, Painting, Photography

Tabloid Art History x Mythomania

Posted on August 21, 2017

Artwork: Rihanna at Crop Over 2017, Barbados // Plate from Ernst Haeckel’s ‘Kunstformen der Natur’ (‘Artforms of nature’), 1904. Courtesy of TabloidArtHistory.

“Everything has already been done,” Stanley Kubrick opined “Every story has been told. Every scene has been shot. It’s our job to do it one better.”

Perhaps this is true—perhaps it is not. It’s impossible to know that which has never existed until it takes form. But one thing is for sure, and that’s the power of myth, which speaks of human nature’s relentless desire to find a narrative that makes sense out of the chaos and complexities of existence.

We do not need to look all the way back to mythologies of yore, to the heroic, monstrous, and villainous archetypes that have inspired great art, music, and literature in all cultures across time. The classical ideals of god, mortal, and beast have so completely subsumed our conscious (and even unconscious) minds that we simply follow the script.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Artwork: Prince Harry at a pool in Miami, Florida, 2014// ‘Portrait of Nick Wilder’ (detail), by David Hockney, 1966. Acrylic on Canvas, 183 x 183 cm. Courtesy of TabloidArtHistory.

Artwork: A pregnant Beyoncé amongst flowers, Mother’s Day 2017 // ‘Mary Little, later Lady Carr’ by Kehinde Wiley, oil on canvas, 30” x 24”, 2012.Courtesy of TabloidArtHistory.

Categories: Art, Books, Crave, Painting, Photography

An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections From the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017

Posted on August 21, 2017

Carol Summers (1925-2016), Kill for Peace, 1967, from ARTISTS AND WRITERS PROTEST AGAINST THE WAR IN VIET NAM, 1967. Screenprint and photo-screenprint with punctures on board, 23 3/8 × 19 1/4 in. (59.4 × 48.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Print Committee 2006.50.14 © Alexander Ethan Summers

“Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy,” Plato observed in Republic, revealing the underlying paradox of humanity: the will of the masses will eventually lead to oppression in one form or another.

The Founding Fathers of the United States knew this better than most, perhaps knowing themselves well enough to understand that he corrupt seek power and will do whatever it takes to gain the upper hand, whether that means scripting blatant hypocrisies into The Declaration of Independence or advocating for armed rebellion in the Second Amendment.

Perhaps most telling above all was their insistence on protest, of “the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” which closes out the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Undoubtedly, they understood that the nation, founded on stolen land using stolen people, was a ticking time bomb, one that could easily blow up lest any group gain advantage over the other. The will of the people, such as it were, is not inherently “good”—nor moral. It is merely self-serving and invested in appearance politics above all.

Within this space, the act of protest is designed to call attention to that which it perceives as wrong, using the power of the people to make its point in the most public manner possible. As we have seen from recent events in Charlottesville, protest is not intrinsically honest or honorable; it is simply the will of the masses to stand in their beliefs, however valid or flawed.

Hock E Aye VI Edgar Heap of Birds. Relocate Destroy, In Memory of Native Americans, In Memory of Jews, 1987 Pastel on paper Sheet: 22 × 29 13/16in. (55.9 × 75.7 cm). Gift of Dorothee Peiper-Riegraf and Hinrich Peiper 2007.91

But what protest does is let us know: those who will not be silenced and are compelled to have their words heard and their faces shown; that which we celebrate and that which we vilify are simply extensions of our own principles, character, and moral fiber.

In times of strife, artists often take to the frontlines, eager to use their skills in the service of the cause. As 2017 slogs along relentlessly, more and more artists, curators, galleries, museums, and organizations find themselves compelled to make a stand. To find a way to look to the lessons of the past to figure out solutions to the present day; to consider why we are doomed to repeat the wars of the past with new technological possibilities more horrific than ever before.

And, perhaps, inspired to energize and activate those who are simply overwhelmed, disinformed, or have lost their way. History recurs simply because the solutions we sought did not hold; they were simply tenuous measures used to placate the crisis at hand, and over the ensuing years easily wore thin. The solutions require a paradigm change, one that goes beyond shadowboxing with lies and debating disinformation. Solutions require truth, however gruesome it may be, about the corporate project that is the United States of America.

But first, before we ravage the deeply held dreams of the delusional, a little reflection on the past and the ways in which protest can be used to stand against legalized tyranny. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, presents An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections From the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017.

Guerrilla Girls (est. 1985), Guerrilla Girls Review the Whitney, 1987. Offset lithograph, 22 × 17 in. (55.9 × 43.2 cm). Purchase 2000.91 © Guerrilla Girls

The exhibition looks at the ways in which people have organized in resistance and refusal, strikes and boycotts, anti-war movements, equal rights actions, and to fight the AIDS crisis. The artworks selected span the gamut from posters, flyers, and photographs to ad campaigns, paintings, and screenprints.

Featuring works by artists including Richard Avedon, Larry Clark, Lous H. Draper, Larry Fink, Theaster Gates, Gran Fury, Guerilla Girls, Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Toyo Miyatake, Gordon Parks, Ad Reinhardt, Faith Ringgold, Dread Scott, and Gary Simmons, among others—the exhibition is as much a study in politics as it is contemporary American art.

The more you look, the more you see how iconography informs our belief system and the ways in which propaganda can be used in the fight against exploitation. Simply put, it’s not enough to tell the truth. Reality is simply to terrifying, and most people would prefer to bury their heads in the sand than face the stark prospect of a revolution that is without beginning or end.

“All art is propaganda,” George Orwell deftly observed, leading by example with his novels, critical essays, and insights into the nature of wo/man as political animal. When taken as a whole, An Incomplete History of Protest offers more than just a look back at the past: it also shows us how to activate people by appealing to their emotions.

For above all, people react; action simply requires more effort than most are willing to put forth, but reaction—whew! Try to stop the avalanche once it starts. Art, in as much as it is perceived by the senses before it is understood by the mind, is one of the most primal, visceral paths to stir the heart. And so An Incomplete History of Protest reminds us: if you want to move the people, how you say it may be even more important than what you say—and there’s no use fighting it.

Toyo Miyatake (1895–1979), Untitled (Opening Image from Valediction), 1944. Gelatin silver print mounted on board, 9 7/16 × 7 5/16 in. (24 × 18.6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2014.243 © Toyo Miyatake Studio

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Exhibitions, Photography

Juergen Teller: Enjoy Your Life!

Posted on August 16, 2017

If Juergen Teller had a theme song, it would be “My Way,” but not the Frank Sinatra version. No, he would make sure to subvert your expectations at every turn, and cue up the Sid Vicious cover. Like Sid, Juergen is so anti-glamour that he’s chic, always finding a peculiar beauty and joy in the uncomfortable.

His new book, Enjoy Your Life! (Steidl), published in conjunction with the recent exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, embraces the ethos the unexpected. Because what gives life a greater kick than catching you off guard with the curious and the absurd. Teller loves to hone in on things we usually ignore, or look at them from a new vantage point, demystifying their aura and allure. On the reverse, he finds a queer loveliness in things we might otherwise think a bit grotesque, savoring all of the pleasures of our strange and quixotic existence.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: Art, Books, Crave, Photography

Broadway Star of “The King & I” Opens Wellness Center in Queens

Posted on August 14, 2017

We live in a culture that believes the mind and body to be separate entities and treats them as such, driving a wedge between two halves of whole, which only serves to stress and weaken our power, health, and soul. We grow stiff yet flabby in action and thought, losing the simply joys of movement that allow us to reconnect with our inner spirit.

In the same way, we are taught to climb the short ladder of success, for the path to bourgeois accomplishment came easily be accomplished early in life. And once we reach the top—there’s nowhere to go; we can either stay put and block the flow of life, or we can let go and start afresh.

XiaoChuan Xie (a.k.a. Chuan) discovered the pathless path by virtue of coming full circle to where it all began. She began her began her career as a dancer in the Nanjing Jinling Arts Organization in China before coming to New York in 2009 to join the legendary Martha Graham Dance Company, and was described as a “scene stealer” by The New York Times. In 2013, she appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine’s November issue and nominated for the Clive Barnes Award.

After this auspicious start, she went on to star in Tony Award-winning production of The King & I on Broadway, as part of the Lincoln Center Theater’s 2015 Revival. While dancing on Broadway, Chuan became exhausted. She took a break to begin a recovery that would change her the course of her life.

Through her study of the mind-body connection, Chuan discovered her calling as a healer. The applause on stage could not compete with the gratification she received helping her fellow dancers heal from stress and injury, and she left the stage in pursuit of her dreams.

Chuan has always dreamed of opening a wellness and arts center so when the opportunity arose, Chuan took the change, and moved forward with plans to open Spec-Chuan Movement & Arts (SCMA) at 8810 Whitney Avenue in Elmhurst, Queens. The name “Spec-Chuan” comes from Latin word “specter” and sounds like the English word “spectrum.” The name represents acceptance and inclusiveness of all peoples, all cultures, all styles, and all traditions.

A Certified Movement Analyst from Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, Chuan is pursuing a M.S in Dance/Movement Therapy at Sarah Lawrence while honing her talents and skills at SCMA. SCMA provides dance and movement classes, performances, and special events that honor the native traditions of people from all walks of life. Body conditioning classes include Yoga, Pilates, Bartenieff Fundamentals, and Mindfulness Practice weekday mornings and evenings.

Every Saturday morning, World Dance Series highlights traditional dances from all corners of the globe, drawn from the different ethnicities that call Queens their home. SCMA showcases Bollywood, African/Caribbean, and Chinese Folk Dance. Classes are taught by leading experts in the field, and offer a safe, loving environment for people of all ages from all walks of life. SCMA will also host free movement-based arts events, including the Movement Choir, for communal moving and sharing every Friday evening.

Chuan speaks with us about her transformation from performer to healer, and the ways in which SCMA is an extension of her life and philosophy.

Photo: Paul B. Goode

I’d like to begin with your life in China, growing up as a dancer and being committed to the art of movement from such a young age. Many Westerners have “ideas” about Chinese medicine, but those are usually filtered through a Western perspective. I wanted to ask if you could speak about what you see as the ethos of the Chinese approach to health, and the way in which movement is central to this, in so much as it can be conceived of as a form of medicine.

Chuan: Growing up in China, I never felt that Chinese medicine was that different or special until I came to know New York culture. Traditional Chinese Medicine was considered as the “four olds” that was suppressed during Mao’s era. The interesting thing about culture is that no one is able to strip one’s culture.

Chinese medicine is how Chinese people live. I grow up eating certain food in certain seasons and in certain times of the day because we believe that nature provides us the best nourishment. If I ever wake up with a tummy ache or cold, my parents would tell me that I might have caught some negative energy at night because we believe that Yin (negative energy) dominates night and we are the most vulnerable at night. If I have any muscle pain on my body from practice, my mother would take me to see doctors and they would tell us that the circulation is blocked in that area and I need to massage it and make it circulate again.

My parents often teach me how to find certain meridians on my body and stimulate them in order to prevent or help relieve some pains. I still remember why my mother sent me to gymnastics class when I was four years old: She said that I used to get sick very often when I was little, so she thought I needed to get stronger by training my body.

Overall, I think Chinese medicine culture taught me that: 1. The body is so powerful and wise that if we pay attention to its signals, we don’t need unnecessary interventions; In other words, Chinese medicine is about prevention, self-care/self- cure.

2. In Chinese, the word “movement” or “exercise” means “progressive movement” also “the universal revolutionary movement.” Therefore as long as the earth still spins and circles around the sun dancing with other planets, our fluids, organs and energy are moving, our bodies need to be active/mobile/flexible to adapt this ever-moving environment.

3. Our bodies are related with each other and the environment.

Photo: XiaoChuan Xie, courtesy of SCMA

I’m very impressed by your growth within the art, as I remember being so impressed with you as a dancer. It seemed to me, as a member of the audience, that you were not simply dancing, but fully embodying the roll, becoming an actor so that we didn’t just see the movement but we felt the expression of it on an emotional level. What made you realize that performing was no longer your destiny?

Chuan: Performing on stage was never just dancing on stage for me. I early treated performing as an accomplishment and celebration for the long and tough training that I had had in dance school and later in the Red Army dance company.

Later, I doubted about this rewarding pattern, which is when I got into modern dance. Then I felt that performing was cathartic, the stage is where I could express fully and experience different feelings. I did a speaking/dancing part in Annie B. Parson’s choreography, I discovered that I love the feeling of being able to communicate with the crowd. From then on, performing on stage is about communicating and connecting. Performing repertoires, or Broadway shows are very rewarding, however my body is burning out through intense repetitions and they can’t fulfill my desire of communicating and connecting.

In 2015, due to a hip injury, I took two months off from the show to heal. During this recovery time, I began being exposed to many kinds of healing methods, such as Physical Therapy, Acupuncture, Emotional Freedom Technique, Body-Mind Centering, Expressive Arts Therapy, Reiki, etc. I have been a long time meditation and Buddhism practitioner. So it was quite easy for me to get into those healing practices. It was the first time ever in my life that I really took a great look at my body’s being and start appreciating its function and support.

It was a breakthrough. I began understanding more about my posture, physical habits and functions. I relearned how to walk properly with my PT; I learned about certain meridians that run through our bodies also affect the emotional side of us; I experienced that how body can restore so many of our childhood traumas and memories without the conscious mind knowing it.

I found out that I would unconsciously lock my arms close to myself as a result of locking my ribcage as well, as if I was over-protecting myself; I discovered that my tail bone was always tucked under first because of my ballet training, second I believe it’s because the female protection (I am still studying this fact, which is fascinatingly happening to a lot of females); I also explored that I could connect with my organs, fluids and nerves when moving so I would be more fully supported.

When I went back to the show, I was able to utilize those methods to help me get through eight shows a week and even help other cast members feel better in their bodies. That’s when I knew that being a healer and body/mind advocate is my calling. Now I see performing is a way through which I could help people heal, stimulate their senses and serve their needs.

I love that being a dancer was a stop on the path to being a healer, and the way in which you have incorporated aspects of art and movement to focus on the mind- body connection. Could you speak about why this is so important, particularly in our age of hyper digital communications?

Chuan: I think dancing has been the journey to know myself, to know my own body, my mind, and my spirit. As I mentioned above, through dancing, I was able to re-locate my body-mind connection. I personally think being a professional dancer might not be the healthiest, however, everyone is a dancer in nature.

Dancing makes me to be able to connect this modern me with the ancient me, as if it’s a time machine that takes me way back to our origins. Dancing/moving is such a primitive act that we start as a fetus. We are living in the world that we have technologies to sense, feel and act for us. We are losing our primitive senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch; and senses for temperature, kinesthetic, pain, and balance).

However, we are still humans, which means that we still have feelings and emotions. Therefore, the consequences of disconnection between modern living and human body are that we have lots of substances abuses, life style/diet related diseases, mental health crisis, and dare I say: environmental issues.

When our basic senses are heightened, we become more sensible and perceptive to our own bodies and the world around us. If we start paying attention to our bodies’ wisdoms, we would respect this mortal body; if we respect the body, we would nourish the body instead of harming it; if we understand that our body is just a small reflection of what’s going on in the bigger world or universe, we would respect and nourish the others, the other forms of beings, and the environment.

Therefore the messages, or the educational part of all somatic practices is that it brings the awareness in our own body then we can bring that awareness into the space—meaning noticing every subtle beings around us. But before we put ourselves into the world, we have to know ourselves well. Otherwise, we see so many lost souls driven away by the fascinating world. Having a centered self, knowing clearly where the body parts are and understanding how they move take us to the world moving freely without losing the self. It’s a very fine balance.

We don’t want to stay in ourselves too much; we also don’t want to spend all the energy out there and forget ourselves. Thus body/mind practice offers the opportunity to be able to move in/out to find our own balance. Another fascinating benefit of the somatics is that it empowers us. To know and experience that we are able to heal our bodies and strengthen the mortal weaknesses are empowering. In which way, we heal our mind as well.

Photo: XiaoChuan Xie, courtesy of SCMA

One of the things I love about Spec-Chuan is the energy of accessibility you create. I think it can often feel intimidating to step into a dance studio and reconnect with your body in a public (albeit private) space. Could you speak about the importance of creating a space where all people are welcome, and how this speaks to your vision of dance within the community?

Chuan: One of the reasons that I didn’t think performing alone was enough for me was that I couldn’t make people dance with me and share the joy of expressing when I perform in an opera house. In Spec-Chuan, all levels of movers are welcome because dancing/moving joyfully belongs to everyone. We don’t’ have mirrors in the space because I want to encourage people to start listening to their body, feeling the body, and sensing the body without any judgments.

All somatic classes start with warm-ups, which are designed to focus on breaths and tuning-in, so the heightened sense of awareness and acceptance can be carried through the whole class. Although as abstract or tedious as somatic sounds, I still believe that dancing/moving needs to be joyful. So I incorporate many folk dance or community dance element in my classes to let people experience the joy of rhythms and movements, as if we are recreating the celebratory feelings of dancing together in a communal settings.

Human beings used to get together, dancing, singing and sharing stories in a community, whereas nowadays we sit in a theater watching artists performing as if we were all royals. Spec-Chuan is a safe and loving space for all who are looking for a community of creative/therapeutic arts.

Here is a quote from William H. McNeill’s Keeping Together in Time: “… the expanded emotional solidarity that dancing together arouses must have conferred an important advantage on those groups that first learned the trick of keeping together in time. So great, indeed, was the advantage, that other hominid groups presumably either learned to dance or became extinct.”

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I love how you look at dance as an art and practice within individual cultures, and you desire to bring these cultures together through movement. What inspired this interest in diversity and tradition?

Chuan: First I wanted to have a community-based space, religion free, where people can come in learning more about their bodies, cultures, humanity, and creativity. I have lived here for almost eight years. This neighborhood is the most diverse neighborhood in the world. I am proud to be part of this multicultural harmony, and I want to highlight this harmony.

Often we are separated or categorized by our skin colors, nationalities, or religions. However, I believe that we all share the same root-—humanity. As long as all cultures’ existence, there is dance. As a body/mind believer, I don’t think there is a better way to embody the culture than learning its folk form of dance. Culture is so powerful that some Islamphobes eat Halal food without any hesitation. So I believe that learning different cultural dances can help us understand more about each other.

Please talk about where Spec-Chuan fits in on your path as an artist, and how it becomes a space for creation unto itself. What would you like to realize here?

Chuan: Opening Spec-Chuan was really a dream come true. However, there lay many challenges. Being able to own an ideal business is empowering for an independent artist. I have always believed that art is a reflection of life. More layered and diverse life experiences make an artist’s work fuller and richer. I am innately curious and adventurous so life takes me on a forever-interesting ride.

Many people are surprised that I chose this route as suppose a shining dancer. For me, this really is an extension of what I have been doing—exploring the unknown. I am at the stage that I need to create my own works. Thus creating Spec-Chuan, figuring out what I want to teach and make is a complex project. At this transformational moment of my life, I am encountering another self-discovery episode. I would use the image of snake or insect shedding the skin seasonally to describe my feelings about growing.

I think once a while, I need to let what has grown on me peel, then I eat it as a kind of nourishment, then give the new organism a chance to grow. This sounds a little disgusting, but it’s exactly how I feel. I am learning to accept the painful process of peeling the old and to be patient with the new organism’s growth.

For more information, visit
Spec-Chuan Movement & Arts
8810 Whitney Ave, B, Elmhurst, NY 11373
Monday-Saturday, 9am-9pm

Photo: XiaoChuan Xie, courtesy of SCMA

Categories: Art