Join the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Pao Arts Center, and Lenora Lee Dance for a free virtual viewing party for Meditations on the Power of Community. Watch the film here!
Video still Meditations on the Power of Community, dancer Naoko Brown at Shen Wei: Painting in Motion Exhibition (Hostetter Gallery), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, December 3, 2020 – June 20, 2021, courtesy Weiying Olivia Huang.
Meditations on the Power of Community is a short film commissioned by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, featuring choreography by Pao Arts Center 2021 Artist-in-Residence Lenora Lee Dance and filmed by Weiying Olivia Huang. The film features interviews with members of Boston’s Chinatown community, in response to the Museum’s exhibition Shen Wei: Painting in Motion.
Following a screening of the film, join Weiying Olivia Huang, filmmaker, Lenora Lee of Lenora Lee Dance, Paul W. Lee, Board President of Asian Community Development Corporation, Cynthia Woo of Pao Arts Center, and moderator Susan Chinsen, Creative Producer/Engagement, Founding Director/Boston Asian American Film Festival, Emerson College Office of the Arts, ArtsEmerson, for a dialogue about the resilience of local activists, dreams turned into reality through art, advocacy, and the healing embrace of culture.
The program will feature a screening of this short film as well as opportunities for the audience to join the conversation.
Lenora Lee is a 2021 Pao Arts Center Artist in Residence, with additional support from ArtsEmerson.
Meditations on the Power of Community will also be screened in Projecting Connections: Chinese American Experiences, presented by ArtsEmerson and the Boston Asian American Film Festival from May 6- 10.
About the Panelists:
Photo Credit: Hien Huynh
Lenora Lee is a dancer, choreographer, and artistic director of Lenora Lee Dance. She pushes the envelope of large-scale multimedia dance performance crafted for the proscenium, underwater, or in the air, and at times is site-responsive, immersive and interactive. Lenora’s work integrates contemporary dance, film, music, and research related to immigration, global conflict, and human rights.
Paul W. Lee is a retired Partner of Goodwin Procter LLP. Mr. Lee grew up in the Boston Chinatown and Brookline, Mass. His Chinese immigrant parents worked in restaurants and garment factories. After earning a degree in electrical engineering and computer science, he became a lawyer and was a partner at Goodwin Procter specializing in corporate law from 1984-2013. Mr. Lee serves on the boards of The Boston Foundation Board, Conservation Law Foundation, and WGBH, Chair of the Asian Community Fund, and Board President of the Asian Community Development Corporation, which has built over 600 units of housing in Boston Chinatown. In 2019 he received the Sojourner Award from the Chinese Historical Society of New England.
Photo Credit: Sampan/Yiyan Zheng 鄭怡嫣
Susan Chinsen is a Creative Producer at ArtsEmerson. She established the annual Boston Asian American Film Festival in 2008, where she continues as the Festival Director. Previously, she managed the Chinese Historical Society of New England, and was an engagement consultant for the PBS documentary "The Chinese Exclusion Act," building upon her community work and past experience working at WGBH. She is on the Board of Directors at South Cove Community Health Center, MASS Creative and a Steering Committee member of the API Arts Network. Susan is also an alumna of the American Chinese Art Society's traditional dance troupe and Tufts University.
Photo Credit Mengyuan Lin
Weiying Olivia Huang is an award winning documentary filmmaker. Her documentary ‘City as Canvas’ won the Best Human Interest Documentary at the World Premiere Film Awards in 2020. The film, funded by a grant from the Cambridge Arts Council, was also nominated for ‘Best New England Film’ at the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival.
Our Partner:
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It is originally the home of Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose will called for her art collection be permanently exhibited "for the education and enjoyment of the public forever".
ISGM Community programs created in partnership with Pao Arts Center are made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts and Barr Foundation ArtsAmplified initiative.
Education and community programs receive support from the Vertex Foundation, the Rowland Foundation, The Lubin Family Foundation, The Beker Foundation, Liberty Mutual Foundation, The Hamilton Company Charitable Foundation, Thomas Anthony Pappas Charitable Foundation, and the Janet Burke Mann Foundation.
The Gardner Museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Contact: Cynthia Woo | 617-863-9080