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By Christine Jowers/Follow @cmmjowers on Instagram
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Published on June 3, 2025
Photos © Julia Asher/One Day Dance & Steven Pisano
"A Love Letter" at Arts On Site and "Close Quarters lll" at The Slipper Room
Jennifer Chin Dance in A Love Letter (World Premiere)
Direction and Choreography: Jennifer Chin
Sound Design: Sun See Kil
Film: Ian Chen
Costumes: Patti Gilstrap
Stage Design: Colleen Kong Savage
Performers: Jennifer Chin, Richard Sayama, and Hyejin Kim
Venue: Arts On Site
Dates: May 17 - 18, 2025
One of two short films presented at Arts On Site as part of Jennifer Chin Dance's A Love Letter showcases a vibrant AAPI artist-in-residence workshop that Chin recently held at TOPAZ ARTS. We see her encouraging her multi-generational attendees to share stories of their lives, write them onto sheets of red paper, and then fold them into delicate origami envelopes. Later in the film, the group brings elements of those stories to life through movement, with one of the most vigorous interpretations danced by the group's elder — a lifetime of tales springing from his body. Though brief, this gentleman's improv illustrates tradition finding new expression, and it's one of my favorite moments in the piece.
Jennifer Chin in black leotard and tights (center) and workshop attendees. Photo: Paz Tanjuaquio
A Love Letter pays homage to stories of Asian-American heritage in an episodic evening of imagistic symbolism, movement, and film. The themes of migration, tradition, and creating new futures dominate. At times, I felt lost in the flow, as if what I witnessed was more an insider experience than a communication meant for me. Other moments, though, spoke clearly and deeply through powerful imagery and rhythmic variety.
At the start, the subtly dramatic Chin and Richard Sayama, a budding athletic dance talent, sit beside each other, eyes closed, touching and minimally gesturing around their bodies. As their dancing expands into weight-sharing lifts, lyricism, and angles, we sense they're traveling, on the lookout for elements of danger or sustenance as they go. More soloists than partners, each dancer seems a witness to one another's experience.
Chin, wearing head-to-toe red, meditatively migrates through multiple landscapes in the atmospheric film Native Soil. Her high-collared, broad-shouldered jacket with a sheer, billowing skirt looks at once ancient and futuristic. Arriving at a grouping of stark white boulders, she regally stands repeating a motif seen in the first duet — one hand, balled into a fist, meeting the other that cups around it as if protecting precious treasure. Finally, arriving in a verdant forest, her hands press hard against the bark of one of the trees. Perhaps she is where she belongs at last.
The captivating Hyejin Kim, a master South Korean vocalist, sings and chants to Chin, who moves downstage of her. In "hegira," Kim tells her story with startling changes in accent and tone punctuated by her emphatic flicking of a huge fan. Her presence and performance command attention. Even if you don't understand Kim's language, you profoundly sense her warning to the younger generation, "Be careful on your journey, and don't forget where you come from."
In A Love Letters' finale, "The Weight of Lightness," Chin wears a gold apron with voluminous white net pockets filled with red petals. They remind us of the red papers inscribed with personal writing introduced earlier. With quiet purpose, Chin empties her pockets in a mesmerizing ritual covering the stage with circles within circles of red petals. Eventually, Sayama sweeps in to dance in the center of it all, as if to say, "Only surrounded by the fragile beauty of a community's stories can a culture's vibrancy endure."
Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble presents Close Quarters III
Guest artists SMOKE RING: Benna, Eckes, Tenor, Stephanie "Tags" Taglianetti, Lead,
Alexander Ronneburg, Baritone, and Gabriel Spector, Bass
Artistic Director of ST/DE: Samantha Géracht // Associate Artistic Directors: Eleanor Bunker, Lauren Naslund
Dancers: Ilana Ruth Cohen, Margaret Mighty Oak Bradley, Mikey Comito, Edu Hernandez, Brad Orego, Margarita Tisato, Krista Jansen, Jamie Robinson, Clarence Brooks
Choreography: Anna Sokolow- Suite from Rooms (1955), Suite from Kurt Weill (1988), The Threatened Assassin from Magritte, Magritte (1970), and Krista Jansen- Off the Cuff (2025)
Costumes: Eleanor Bunker Music: Kenyon Hopkins, Kurt Weill, Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn, Nina Simone
Date: May 20, 2025
Samantha Géracht constantly seeks new ways to remind us of the genius of Anna Sokolow (1910-2000). Close Quarters III marks the third time she's brought Sokolow's spare, direct movement language to the Slipper Room, New York City's Lower East Side hub for burlesque. It may be the last place you'd expect to encounter serious art, but Sokolow herself was known for defying expectations.
Sitting in the audience at the Slipper Room feels much like peering into a musical jewelry box. First, the stage right in front of us is miniature. Second, the starry velvet curtains that enclose it promise the appearance of a ballerina (or a fan dancer) twirling to tinkling music. When, instead of being entertained by twirls of tulle or feathers, one confronts desperation and inhumanity, the juxtaposition chills. The unmet desire, isolation, and claustrophobia of Suite from Rooms (1955) and the brutal cruelty of Suite from Kurt Weill (1988) strike us all the more forcefully in this cabaret atmosphere.
Sokolow had an appreciation for the absurd and a sense of humor too. This shows up in The Threatened Assassin, an excerpt from Magritte, Magritte (1970). In this topsy-turvy, surreal world, a murder victim, La Femme, gleefully jumps from her deathbed to dance with Le Flic ( the cop) sent in to investigate the crime. Meanwhile, her melodramatic, victrola-obsessed murderer, L'Assassin, waxes on about love and discusses a bit of theater with the other Le Flic— it's NEVER inappropriate to talk theater.
Krista Jansen performed her own snappy, surprising choreographic battle with a shirt, Off the Cuff, the only non-Sokolow dance piece of the evening, and a delightful addition. Jansen's energy burst off the stage, and at one point, she almost did, too. Speaking of delightful additions, the velvet-voiced acapella quartet SMOKE RING serenaded us with witty and romantic songs between dance sets. Exceptional performances all around, I eagerly await Close Quarters IV.
