Experience Chinatown 2023: Creating a Thriving Community
Pao Arts Center celebrated another successful Experience Chinatown Arts Festival with thousands of visitors! Throughout September and October, the festival responded to the theme “How does a community thrive?” with lively murals at 6 sites.
On Sunday, October 1st, 2,100 community members experienced live performances, guided tours of the vibrant murals, arts & crafts, and the At Home in Chinatown exhibit.
Continuum Dance Project kicked off the live performances with their debut of Becoming Water, which tells the story of community resilience after the displacement of hundreds of Chinatown local families from the 1950s. Dancers moved fluidly throughout the park, intertwining compelling stories with landscape, dance, and live music in this site-specific piece presented by the Greenway Conservancy’s Momentum Dance Series. NÜWA Athletic Club followed with their lively and playful lion dance, amidst children gleefully playing in waves of bubbles and audiences connecting with cultural traditions. TIFFY changed the pace to contemporary, through her lush rock ballads imbued with a vulnerable yet confident sensibility. Maddie Lam continued with songs punctuated by meditative lyrics and acoustic backup. Rounding out the program was an appearance from multilingual neighborhood staple Juk Sing. Attendees sang along to classic Canto-pop hits 80’s and 90’s hits from Hong Kong and beyond. Finally, Continuum Dance Project returned for an encore performance.
Throughout the festival, visitors viewed the six colorful murals where muralists Jennifer Duan, Jinyi Duan, Yuan-yuan Wang, Yixuan Zeng, Jialu Zou, and BCNC Youth Center participants explored “How does a community thrive?” We hosted guided tours of the murals and Chinatown history with BCNC board members, supporters, School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University Create Students, and National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) Leadership Convention attendees. Thank you to our host sites: APM coffee, Crave Chinatown, WakuWaku, Q Restaurant, Happy Lamb Hotpot Boston, and Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC). Learn more about the youth’s process of creating the murals.
Special thanks to, the artists and performers, partners, supporters, all our volunteers including those from State Street Corporation, Bank of America, Tufts University, BCNC Bamboo Circle, and audiences members for creating a vibrant and caring community for Chinatown!
In the Press
Pao Arts Center Stressing Outdoor Events, Aidan Poole, The Boston Guardian, Friday, October 6, p 5, p 14
Pao Arts Center's Experience Chinatown Arts Festival celebrates community, GBH