Recap— BOSxNYC Birthday Weekend, April 2023 (Part I)
My friends and I celebrate another year of life, with dance, art, food, views, and friendship spanning Boston and the Big Apple.
As the seasons turned from winter to spring and the months from March to April, my dear friend and I entered a period of transition, namely between our mid and late 20s. Below are some photos and reflections from our back-to-back birthday weekends, which included a handful of art museums, dance shows, and meals in scenic Boston, Massachusetts, and the ever-lively New York City. A weekend filled with friends makes for a heart full of warm memories.
A Feast for the Belly and Eyes
To kick off our birthday plans, we celebrated my birthday with a cozy dinner in Boston’s Chinatown. I picked a no-frills family-style restaurant that brought back pleasant memories of high school and college as we filled our plates with duck, tofu, lobster sauce, and rice before topping the meal off with a cake from down the block. A sponge cake with cream, fruit, and chestnut filling, it was likewise simple, nostalgic, and so delicious. Props to the 180 Cafe, AKA Royal Crown Bakery, and the super friendly staff who allowed me to swing by after closing time to pick up my order.
The next morning, we soaked in a wave of visual treasures at the Museum of Fine Arts, starting with the inspirational and influential work of Katsushika Hokusai (b. 1760), a ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period best known for the iconic Great Wave off Kanagawa.
The exhibit featured over 100 woodblock prints, paintings, and illustrated books by Hokusai alongside about 200 works by his teachers, students, rivals, and admirers, creating juxtapositions that demonstrate his influence through time and space [MFA.org].
In the middle left panel of the collage below is a portrait of Olympic figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu, photographed by Mika Ninagawa. He’s a heartthrob and a fashionista. Next to him is artist Jumpei Mitsuith’s eye-catching 50,000-piece lego translation of the Great Wave. At the bottom right is Yoshitomo Nara’s “No Nukes! Love and Peace (In the Floating World)” and “Slash With a Knife,” both of which play on Hokusai’s work.
Of the Hokusai prints, my favorites were those of water and underwater animals. The large crab below is embossed, perhaps due to the pressure with which the paper was pressed onto the woodblock. The cobalt blue of the water is electrifying, especially against the orange rockfish, and the banded gradients in the carp print are beautiful in the way that they gradually transition from a saturated pigment to a translucent wash.
Wu Junyong (b. 1978) and his imagination of “otherworldly realms” was next to catch our eye. Located in a wide hallway close to the MFA gift shop, a majority of these paintings were over four feet tall and six feet wide, and characterized by bold strokes of maroon red. The scenes showed animals in tumultuous clashes and awkward poses. Fittingly, artsy.net describes his work as infused with a mixture of dark humor and pathos through which Junyong laments and lampoons the foibles of those in power and the disingenuousness beneath social mores.
Chinese society and politics, as well as the universal challenges of melancholy, helplessness, and isolation, are common themes in Wu Junyong’s other creations. A fan of Chinese folk art, I was pleased to see his stylistic references to traditional interpretations of the Chinese dragon, particularly in the features of the lion, although I usually associate it with dignity and regality. What do you think Junyong’s message is?
My friend and I also browsed the contemporary wing’s temporary exhibit on Cy Twombly, coincidentally curated around the theme of “making the past present.” According to MFA.org, it explores the artist’s lifelong fascination with the mythology, poetry, and archeology of antiquity and reveals how it shaped his creative vision.
I was interested in this exhibit due to the artist’s belonging to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Jones — masters of pop art, modern art, abstract expressionism, neo-dadaism, and postmodernism, and figures in my contemporary art history textbook — as well as his influences on younger artists such as Jean-Michael Basquiet. I thought to myself: those are some valuable scribbles!
The MFA does a wonderful job of curating thought-provoking exhibitions for the local community, and I feel quite fortunate to live just a few train rides away. This particular visit validated to me that, from Hokusai to Twombly and beyond, there are infinite possibilities when it comes to artistic expression. The most important step is to pick up the pen and paper and make your mark.
Burning Up the Stage
Every year, Boston University’s Fusion dance troupe hosts the highly anticipated ELEMENTS dance competition in which teams from all over the East Coast come to compete, headliners perform and teach workshops, and Fusion opens and closes the show [www.bufusiondance.com]. My friends and I loved attending this in the past, especially considering that many familiar faces would be on stage. Elements was synonymous with an evening of talent, creativity, community, and celebration. The performers brought hip-hop, urban, and modern dance to the stage with great confidence, sexiness, and raw emotion.
This year’s ELEMENTS XXI was no exception, and we cheered loudly for every set. In attendance were N/A, LIV3LIHOOD, and Project D in third, second, and first place; seasoned headliners Marlee Hightower, Kenichi Kasamatsu, and Devin Pornel; and even a team from Colorado.
I read up about the winning teams and sets before and after the show. According to LIV3LIHOOD’s Instagram, their spring set, “AUTO,” depicts the concept of humans becoming less human. In their words: in an era of automation, are we losing the art of human emotions and connection? Have we become beings set in autopilot and driven by technology? Do we consume content or does content consume us? As machines replace our minds, will we malfunction or will we be able to maintain humanity and find balance in this world of automation? Maybe one day. Maybe, we’ll see. [@liv3lihood]
My friend visiting from NYC is a big fan of N/A and their director Eddie Cao. To quote their YouTube page: N/A, a Boston-based dance company, was created to explore dance through a conceptual lens, to challenge our emotional limits as much as our physical limits, and to dance personally to better share collectively. Our dancers are all unique, which we work to highlight, not mask. We are constantly adapting as a whole and to each other to create the most cohesive, genuine work. Most importantly, we root everything that we do in intention [www.youtube.com/@NA-cj6ez].
We attended their 2020 dance showcase, “A word like yes,” set in Boston’s Parachute Studios. Fun fact: the venue is home to Boston’s tallest cyc wall (a blank, modular, and seamless wall, which makes it a great canvas for photoshoots and performance art). An experiential, multidisciplinary dance showcase, it consisted of a series of mostly solo pieces in which N/A members presented their unique interpretations and/or relationships with the titular theme. Whilst watching their spring 2023 set and writing this post, I also reminisced about that showcase and its graphic design materials, which curious creatives can dig into via the group’s YouTube channel and the designer’s portfolio website.
I caught two friends and picked up hip-hop choreography at Hightower’s workshop the next afternoon. It was nice to put some dormant dance skills into action and share a space with talented people. They say the best way to improve is to watch and learn from those more advanced than you!
Ethereal Sights with Eon Dance Troupe
A couple of days later, my college dance group held its very first annual showcase. As members of the founding team, my friend and I attended at the invitation of the MC and former president, who was once our freshman representative! It was heartwarming to see how much our humble little group has grown, in both numbers and talent, while still retaining the core values and mission. We Eon oldies owe so much to our fresh rep and other members who’ve carried the torch.
Thus, my birthday week was unexpectedly full of blasts from the past in a way that was nostalgic, bittersweet, and deeply moving. It had me reminiscing about my earlier twenties and thinking about how quickly time has passed. How does one accept life’s various transitions and stages with grace and peace of mind, while also nurturing our roots and the experiences that have so deeply shaped who we are? Is there room for that starry-eyed girl of the past in my present self?
These questions are admittedly challenging for me, as getting older has also come with heightened pressure from family and myself to check off life milestones and accomplishments, now with no office hours or extended time to smooth the ride. However, I also see so many inspirational women of all ages around me, from my mother who is consistently enthusiastic about learning new things, to Everything Everywhere’s Michelle Yeoh, who in her Oscar speech urged ladies everywhere to “[never] let anybody tell you you’re ever past your prime.”
Wrapped and Unwrapped
Being around my old friends in our old haunts and with our old pastimes throughout my birthday week was an invaluable birthday gift, as well as a call for an evaluation of my path in life. And that is both the traveled and the unknown. As I write this, I’m reminded too of the present moment, which is often best enjoyed for what it is. Note to self: Make time for a dance break and remember that with imagination, confidence, and community, there’s little limit to what you can create.
To keep this short, I’ll continue the NYC portion of this post in Part II! Thanks for reading and celebrating with me.
