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State of the Arts explores Chinese celebrations of the New Year, marriage, and death and how they form an “Unbroken Thread” of ongoing importance to Chinese Americans today.
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Friday, February 1, 2008 @ 8:30 pm & Wednesday, February 6, 2008 @ 11:30 pm
 Preview
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the bride wore red
The wedding is one of the most important aspects of any culture. In an exhibit called The Bride Wore Red: Chinese Wedding Traditions, The Newark Museum traced the development of wedding gowns, from the nineteenth century through the present. Stories told by Chinese American brides, and ornate dresses, fine jewelry, historic photographs, and wedding gifts dating back to southern China in the 1850s were featured, including a traditional Chinese wedding bed which was like a room within a room, with a place for women to gather and do fine sewing.
Watch a video of Chinese American women telling stories of their own courtships and weddings
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Chinese Wedding
China, 19th century
Bride’s skirt and jacket
China, 19th century
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new landscape
Like current Chinese society, artist Zhiyuan Cong’s paintings are a mix of thousands of years of traditional Chinese arts, contemporary Chinese politics, and Western culture. Cong began painting at age eleven and grew into maturity as a painter during the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. Cong, who came to America in the 1980s, is a master of traditional Chinese ink painting. However, his work also reveals his American experience and his politically-charged upbringing. State of the Arts visits Cong’s studio and in class at William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ, where he currently teaches in this investigation of the compelling and beautiful work of an artist living on the edge of two rapidly merging worlds.
 See photographs from Zhiyuan Cong’s childhood in China
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“Thinker Under the Great Wall”
by Zhiyuan Cong, 1997
Artist Zhiyuan Cong
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recarving china’s past
The Wu Family Shrines are one of China’s most important artistic and cultural sites. Much of what is known about the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 220) is based on this elaborate burial shrine and the precious objects found there over the past 2,000 years. However, recent scholarship led by the Princeton University Art Museum has thrown everything about the Wu Family Shrines into question by suggesting that the shrines were changed substantially over the years – in fact, the Wu Family may have lived hundreds of years after the shrines were built! The beauty of the “brilliant artifacts” created for the afterlife, the importance of ancestor worship, and the artistic importance of the shrine architecture and its carvings were brought to life in “Recarving China’s Past,” a remarkable exhibit that featured digital reconstructions as well as architectural stonework and rare art objects never before seen in America. State of the Arts talks with curator and architectural historian Cary Y. Liu to better understand the importance of his new take on one of China’s most venerable monuments.
See a rubbing of a carving containing the Queen Mother of the West and other mythological figures, and read a detailed description of the rubbing in an excerpt from the exhibition catalog
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“Sleeve dancer”
Western Han Dynasty, Earthenware with pigments, Private Collection
“Sleeve dancer and acrobat on drums” - Detail of Stone Chamber 1
Wu family shrines rubbings,
Princeton University Art Museum
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nai ni’s new year
2007 is the Year of the Rat, the first of the 12 signs in the Chinese zodiac. The Nai Ni Chen Dance Company puts on a special performance every New Year at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, followed by a traditional Chinese New Year’s banquet, showing how central food is to the celebration. State of the Arts explores how Nai Ni Chen, a contemporary choreographer raised in China, keeps and transforms ancient Chinese traditions in her work.
Watch past State of the Arts features on Nai Ni Chen
- where to see
Celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Rat with the Nai Ni Chen Dance Company
NJPAC,
One Centre Street, Newark, NJ
888-GONJPAC
www.njpac.org
• Annual Chinese New Year Performance at NJPAC
February 9, 2008 @ 2 & 7:00 pm
with Chinese Banquet at 4:00 pm
February 10, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
Banquet Tickets: 800-650-0246
- also visit
www.nainichen.org
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Nai Ni Chen |
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