twi-ny talks

TWI-NY TALK: EMILY JOHNSON

Emily Johnson explores home and heritage in THE THANK-YOU BAR (photo by Cameron Wittig)

THE THANK-YOU BAR
New York Live Arts
Bessie Schönberg Theater
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
November 9-12, $15-$20
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.catalystdance.com

“I want to make work that looks at identity and cultural responsibility — that is beautiful and powerful — full of myth and truth at the same time,” choreographer Emily Johnson explains in her mission statement. “I want to be grounded in my heritage, supported by my community, and giving back — always.” Born in Alaska of Yup’ik descent and based in Minneapolis, Johnson has been creating site-specific dance installations in collaboration with visual artists and musicians since 1998, exploring ideas of home, identity, and the natural world through different modes of storytelling. Her latest multimedia performance piece is The Thank-you Bar, running at New York Live Arts from November 9 to 12. A collaboration with musicians James Everest and Joel Pickard of BLACKFISH, who will play a special set on the final night, the performance installation also includes beadwork by Karen Beaver and paper sculptures by Krista Kelley Walsh. The extremely eloquent and thoughtful Johnson carefully considered our questions for our latest twi-ny talk; she will also participate in a preshow chat on November 9 with NYLA artistic director Carla Peterson as well as a discussion on November 11 with dancer-choreographer Reggie Wilson following the 9:30 show.

twi-ny: In her Context Notes about The Thank-you Bar on the New York Live Arts blog, Biba Bell is taken by your voiceover “What is becoming more clear to me is what I’m missing,” asking the questions “How many moments are passed, paused or pregnant with the sense of what is missed — something, someone, someplace? What do they sound like, smell like, and how do they feel?” What are some of the things you are missing, and how do they drive your artistic creation?

Emily Johnson: I said that — about the missing — because I am feeling years accumulate. What is absent is becoming an acute pain and it makes me feel old, most simply because of what has already gone by. I have missed my niece and nephew growing up because I was in Minneapolis, making dance, while they were in Alaska. I miss many, many mornings with my grandma — casual mornings of coffee, where we sit around, she doing crosswords until a story comes out. If I’m not around, I simply miss the story and I miss the time. And this creates the yearning — or heightens it, at the very least. I long for these stories. I long for the time with my elders, the time with my niece and nephew and rest of my family. And it points to what might not be: How much longer can I wait to learn the Yup’ik language, helped along by my grandma — the only one in my family who speaks it? How much longer can my body make do without feeling the ground of Alaska beneath my feet on a regular, day in and day out basis? What disservice do I do my life when I let these things pass me by?

Eventually, time runs out. Every summer I go home for the salmon run and I am trying to imprint the process of putting the salmon up (cleaning, smoking, kippuring, freezing . . .) into my brain so that when it comes my time to take charge of making it happen I will be able to do so. These are some of the things I am missing, and the absence and the longing are so real that it creates a new version of life. Biba’s questions about sounds, smell, feel — this is exactly what drives me. As I created The Thank-you Bar, a work very much about missing home/land, I thought about how our bodies miss, how our minds remember — not a scientific how, but a how related to our own perceptions of our experiences. When a thread of a Crystal Gayle song comes on, I am brought back to the jukebox at my grandma’s bar; when I think about the mountains near my Alaskan home, my chest aches and for some reason it also feels like I am diving into a very cold lake, exhilarating my being. And the thoughts about where and when also make me think of the future.

When I make dances, I try to imagine the future. I get curious about what images, reactions, or stories the audience might remember four days after seeing a performance. This leads me to structure dances with a focused attention on the smallest of details: what the audience might walk on as they enter the space, what they might smell during a particular story. . . . It makes me consider what I can leave out of the equation so as to let conjecture and interpretation have a role in the room.

Emily Johnson has teamed up with James Everest and Joel Pickard of BLACKFISH and others in THE THANK-YOU BAR (photo by Cameron Wittig)

twi-ny: The Thank-you Bar and its companion exhibit, “This Is Displacement,” explore the idea of home. You were born in Alaska, you’re based in Minneapolis, and you’re now presenting the New York premiere of a work that has previously been performed in Oklahoma, Houston, and other locations. Where is home for you?

Emily Johnson: The most specific, locating answer is that I have two homes: one in Minneapolis, the other in Alaska. I love both places, and the home in Minneapolis is actually more concrete: it has my stuff in it. The home in Alaska feels expansive and like it goes on for thousands of years, probably because it doesn’t actually have any walls. I don’t have a living space in Alaska, but it’s where I come from and where I continually return to.

To be honest, I try to build another home for myself and audiences in The Thank-you Bar. Does this mean I am searching? Does this mean I believe we can adapt to any longing, and dislocation? I build the home by trying to bring attention to the building we are in and the people who are gathered in the room. I try to imagine the walls gone; I try to imagine what was here before the current incarnation. I want the feeling of “home” to lead to a kind of intimacy so that people feel comfortable, responsible even, for it. I think we tend to look at things as static when, in reality, our bodies and places house past, present, and future, at once. It’s anything but static and it’s kind of exciting to tap into.

twi-ny: You collaborated with James Everest and Joel Pickard of BLACKFISH on The Thank-you Bar, and the duo will be playing a special concert on November 12. What is it about their music that draws you to them and made you want to work with them?

Emily Johnson: BLACKFISH music is dramatically mind altering for me. When James [Everest], Joel [Pickard], and I started work, part of our process was to improvise together in a room, daily. We’ve continued that process, as much as we can when we tour, and out of it James and Joel created their project, BLACKFISH. As BLACKFISH, they perform improvised concerts in conjunction with our tours. I love their concerts — and I love that they’ve developed this entire project out of The Thank-you Bar. On the twelfth, they’re releasing a gorgeous limited edition, letter-pressed, eight-CD collection of some of the concerts they’ve recorded over the past two years. John Scott heard their concert in Vermont this summer and has since worked with them for music for his new work. He very endearingly asked my permission first.

In The Thank-you Bar, they don’t play as BLACKFISH; they play as James and Joel. What I most appreciate about them is their specificity and dedication to improvisation. The music they composed for The Thank-you Bar is set; it came from improvisations, from bouts of memory and discussions of the jukebox I mentioned (that at my grandma’s was filled with classic country). The sound of dislocation and rerouting to find home is what they built for The Thank-you Bar. It makes me want to work with them again and again.

One day, early in the process, I was rehearsing in a separate studio. I came down and they told me to sit on the floor. They proceeded to play music that layered inch by inch and sound by sound, as they appeared and disappeared, until a reverberating chorus echoed off the walls. I remember slapping the floor and exclaiming/laughing at the genius of it. Them: missing. Music: building. We’ve kept it. They basically choreographed the beginning of the dance.

TWI-NY TALK: LAURA PETERSON

Laura Peterson goes environmental with WOODEN (photo by Steven Schreiber)

HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
November 4-12, $20
212-647-0202
www.here.org
www.lpchoreography.com

Last January, Laura Peterson Choreography presented Wooden as part of HERE’s annual Culturemart festival. The work-in-progress, which uses real grass and trees in creating living environments in which a quartet of dancers — Peterson, Kate Martel, Edward Rice, and Janna Diamond — perform, officially opened this past Friday, beginning an eight-show run that continues at HERE through November 12. Consisting of three parts, “Ground,” “Trees,” and “Corridor,” Wooden examines time and nature, inspired by earthworks and taking place on a biodegradable set. There will be a special panel discussion, “Dance, Installation, and Repurposing,” following the November 9 performance, in which Peterson will talk about her creative process. Just as she prepared for opening night, Peterson, who teaches classes at Dance New Amsterdam, answered some questions for twi-ny as curtain time beckoned.

Edward Rice, Laura Peterson, and Janna Diamond in WOODEN (photo by Steven Schreiber)

twi-ny: When we first met back in January, you were extremely nervous, putting together Wooden for Culturemart. How are the nerves as the piece is ready for its first official performances this week at HERE?

Laura Peterson: I am so happy with Wooden. When we performed the dance on the grass at Culturemart in January, I had no idea how it would behave, what it would be like to install a living lawn or what it would feel like for our bodies to dance on. We learned that it lives and grows and needs water every night. Dancing on the grass is so much more difficult that dancing on a normal floor. Sliding doesn’t really happen, turning is very precarious, and the effort of moving on an uneven terrain is very intense. We figured all of these things out through Culturemart and everyone is much calmer.

twi-ny: How has Wooden changed since then?

Laura Peterson: Most of the choreography that we performed in January 2011 has been reworked. Because HERE provides the opportunity of the Culturemart festival to workshop the pieces by members of the HERE Artist Residency Program, we are able to see the problems in a piece before full production and address them. The sound score is very different, the costumes are a little different, and we are also performing part of the dance we developed in 2010. This section is performed in a barren landscape with hanging driftwood trees while the audience is sitting on the lawn in the second half of Wooden. There is an installation and a soloist as the audience enters, which is brand new as well. It’s called “Corridor,” and it is performed by several different dancers throughout the performance run.

twi-ny: You incorporate environmentally friendly earthwork into Wooden. How did you go about selecting the material? Did you have any primary influences when designing the installation itself?

Laura Peterson: I was first inspired to create this dance in 2009 when I was looking at outdoor installation work and natural architecture. I am often influenced by visual art, and I started seriously looking at earthwork and pieces made from natural materials. I found myself thinking that those pieces are meant to change, as they are subject to time and weather. This was around the time that my dance called Forever was being performed on a large set consisting of a white circular platform made from forty-eight triangles. After the performances of Forever ended and we were loading out, I thought about how much I was throwing away after a show closes and it really bothered me. Luckily, some of those triangles became tables in our friend’s restaurant, but only using something for a week and letting it go into a Dumpster stuck with me. I decided that using biodegradable materials was going to be part of my concept in Wooden. I wonder if the audience will consciously realize they are sitting on and among natural and ecologically sensitive materials. We are going to find out.

TWI-NY TALK: RED GROOMS

Red Grooms, “Spy Cab,” acrylic on paper, 2011 (courtesy of Marlborough Gallery)

“RED GROOMS, NEW YORK: 1976-2011”
Marlborough Gallery
40 West 57th St.
Through October 22, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-541-4900
www.marlboroughgallery.com

In the playful noir short story that opens the catalog of his latest exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery, Red Grooms’s alter ego, Gunslinger, says, “Ya see, I wanted to show the public how low it gets sometimes, down under the belly of the beast.” For more than fifty years, Grooms has been revealing the belly of the beast that is New York, but it turns out that Grooms’s world is filled with colorful caricatures living it up in the maelstrom he refers to as “the city that never snores.” In “Red Grooms, New York: 1976-2011,” Grooms, who was born and raised in Nashville and has lived in New York City since 1957, collects some of his finest work of the last thirty-five years, including paintings, mixed-media constructions, sculpto-pictoramas, and such walk-in installations as “The Bus” and “42nd Street — Porno Bookstore.” Grooms has an innate sense of life in the Big Apple, capturing the essence that lies at the heart of the city in such pieces as “The Funny Place,” “Give My Regards to Broadway,” “Small Hot Dog Vendor,” and “Tattoo Parlor.” We recently spoke with Grooms, a tall, engaging, and quite forthcoming fellow, at the exhibit’s opening, where he was surrounded by admiring fans who could not wipe the huge smiles off their faces, and later by phone.

twi-ny: There’s a timeless quality to your work, in which you display a unique view of New York. The city has gone through some major changes during the period covered in this exhibition. How do you see the New York of 1976, or even the 1950s, as different from today?

Red Grooms: I think it’s great right now. It just seems very vibrant to me. It seems like there are twice as many people as there used to be. I’m down here below Canal St., almost in Chinatown and near the courts. We’re getting a tremendous amount of tourists —Chinatown, Little Italy, and then going on downtown, down Broadway. That vibrancy and energy, I enjoy it; it’s fun. So I would hope I get some of that now with what I’m doing.

I have a few late works in the show — “Count Tribecula” is one of them — to get the funny quality of the TriBeCa area. I’ve always done a lot on Chinatown. I’ve been in the same studio on Walker St. for forty-two years, so I have seen a bunch of different things. It used to be the hardware center; that actually influenced my work a lot. It took me two minutes to go out and get whatever I needed. There’s still some plastic stores. In the ’70s, plastic was kind of a fashionable medium for a while, and I indulged in it myself. Those different media influenced the work. Right here there’s always been a fabric center as well.

twi-ny: Speaking of different media, in several works from 2010, you have incorporated digital imagery. What made you start doing that?

Red Grooms: I consider myself absolutely not a photographer, and so I used the throwaway cameras, and I’ve literally taken hundreds, if not even thousands, of pictures. About two years ago, I looked through the pictures of ten or so years ago, and they had sort of settled in, so some of them looked kind of special just because it was a particular moment. I started to make collages with them.

This one scene called “Lunchtime on Broadway,” which is panoramic, I took a whole bunch of pictures and glued them together — you know, cut and paste — and made a fairly large composite, and I used that to make that dimensional work, and in doing that, I discovered that if you cut out a figure, it leaves a hole in putting it on a white piece of paper; it got a very strong jump to it between the silhouette and the photographic background. So in that process, I made a whole bunch of four-by-six cards, cut out elements that I wanted to, and then I water-colored in the same thing that was in there. In doing that was when I enlarged them more and did the works you see in the show now.

Red Grooms enjoys the opening of his latest exhibit at the Marlborough Gallery on 57th St. (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

twi-ny: With regard to technology, you don’t have a cell phone or e-mail, and you don’t use a computer, is that right?

Red Grooms: I’m pathetically old school in that way. My wife is capable. You know, it’s really hard to work with people without it. It’s very difficult. I think it will be impossible soon.

twi-ny: Another of the places that you have always captured is Times Square and Broadway. What do you think of the new Times Square?

Red Grooms: When I did the early works from ’76, ’77, I did do research up there, and it was funny because after “Ruckus Manhattan” opened, it was very popular and got a lot of press, so they called me in, some of the people who were trying to clean up Times Square at the time, to see if I had any ideas. I had this weird duality about it. I actually wanted to do something, but in the end, I couldn’t really think of anything. Nothing panned out.

twi-ny: It’s probably best that way.

Red Grooms: So I was there when they were starting to do it. They had a lot of trouble, actually, a lot of starting and stopping on that project before it really got going and became what it is now. We don’t have those places like “Porno Bookstore” anymore. They were so prevalent at that time.

twi-ny: Well, it’s great to now have it on 57th St. at the Marlborough.

Red Grooms: That was a little daring. It hadn’t been up for thirty-four years. It ran well when “Ruckus” showed at the Marlborough in ’77; we didn’t really get any complaints. But in ’82 I had a show with the “Ruckus” stuff on 54th St. and Sixth Ave., and when we were unpacking the stuff, the superintendent of the building took a look at the porno store and said he was going to close the whole show down if we tried to put that up.

twi-ny: In the catalog, you open with a short noir story in which you work many of the pieces’ names into it. Is this writing something you’re exploring more?

Red Grooms: I wrote it together with my wife, Lysiane Luong, and it was a lot of fun. In fact, it was so much fun that we were going to jump right in to an actual full-length detective story, but we didn’t get very far. You’re one of the first persons right now talking about it. I very much liked doing it.

twi-ny: You’ve used the word “fun” several times, and that’s a good way to describe what people experience when they see your work. At the opening, everyone was laughing and smiling. What kind of satisfaction does that bring you?

Red Grooms: It’s great, it’s exciting. You know, I’m quite isolated when I do it. . . . But my dreams of monetary success never panned out.

TWI-NY TALK: MARIA HASSABI

Maria Hassabi premiered SOLO at FIAF’s 2009 Crossing the Line Festival

Saturday, September 17, Crossing the Line Festival: Fiction & Non-Fiction, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, 972 Fifth Ave., free, 212-355-6100, 2:30 – 6:00
SHOW: The Kitchen, 512 West 19th St., November 3-5, $15, 212-255-5793, 8:00
www.fiaf.org/crossingtheline
www.thekitchen.org
www.mariahassabi.com

In such recent productions as Solo and SoloShow, dancer and choreographer Maria Hassabi has displayed a remarkable dexterity, her lithe body interacting with a rolled-up carpet or dangling off the edge of a black platform. When we saw her listed on the French Institute Alliance Française’s website as one of the participants of the free “Fiction & Non-Fiction” kickoff to the 2011 Crossing the Line Festival on September 17, we immediately scheduled an interview with her. Alas, in checking the website later, her scheduled site-specific performance around the Cultural Services of the French Embassy building on Fifth Ave. had disappeared. Does that mean the Cyprus-born Hassabi won’t be participating? Even without her, the lineup is extremely impressive, with works by Trajal Harrell & Perle Palombe, Kimberly Bartosik, Raimund Hoghe & Takashi Ueno, Roderick Murray, and others. (Be sure to get a drink at Prune Nourry’s “Spermbar.”) We’re still holding out hope that Hassabi, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and a New Yorker since 1994, has something special planned for the afternoon, which runs from 2:30 to 6:00.

This year’s Crossing the Line Festival, which continues through October 17, also features Nick van Woert’s “Terra Amata” exhibition at the FIAF Gallery, Xavier le Roy’s “More Mouvements für Lachenmann” at Florence Gould Hall, Bartosik’s “i like penises: a little something in 24 acts” at Danspace Project, Sophie Calle’s free site-specific “Room” installation at the Lowell Hotel, and Rachid Ouramdane’s “Ordinary Witnesses” and “World Fair” at New York Live Arts. Hassabi is definitely scheduled to present the world premiere of her latest piece, SHOW, November 3-5 at the Kitchen. Whether or not she’ll be part of tomorrow’s fête, we’re still delighted that she answered some questions for us, even if she did skip over the one about what she was planning for “Fiction & Non-Fiction.”

twi-ny: What is it that draws you to the Crossing the Line Festival?

Maria Hassabi: What draws me to this festival primarily is the two curators (Lili Chopra and Simon Dove). I admire and respect both of them. I love working and being in conversation with them, feel lucky to be part of what they do, and excited to see what they’ve curated.

twi-ny: Are there any particular performances you’re looking forward to seeing at the festival?

MH: The usual suspects, which in this case, performance-wise, means pretty much all. Sadly, I will be missing many of them as I will be out of town.

twi-ny: You premiered SOLO and SOLOSHOW at PS122, and in November you’ll be premiering SHOW at the Kitchen with frequent collaborator Hristoula Harakas and Will Rawls. What is it about Hristoula that makes her so compatible with your choreography?

MH: There are many of my frequent collaborators in SHOW, including Hristoula, Marcos Rosales, Scott Lyall, Joe Levasseur. I like working with the same people. With Hristoula, we have worked together since 2002. I treasure such a long-term collaboration, and Hristoula’s ethics of work are irreplaceable. Of course, she’s undoubtedly a gorgeous performer.

twi-ny: You are a remarkably flexible dancer. Do you have a special exercise regimen or a secret you’re willing to share?

MH: I was born flexible! Then I slept all the way until I went onstage! You know, muscle atrophy helps!

TWI-NY TALK: BILL T. JONES

Kennedy Center honoree and two-time Tony winner Bill T. Jones begins his company’s inaugural New York Live Arts season this week

BODY AGAINST BODY
New York Live Arts
Bessie Schönberg Theater
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
September 16-24, $32-$40 ($15 on 9/20)
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org

Last December was a big month for two-time Tony-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones (Spring Awakening, Fela!). The Florida-born dance legend, who formed the highly influential Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982, was awarded the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor, which he called “one of the highest moments in my life,” and he also teamed up with Dance Theater Workshop to create the artist-led New York Live Arts, which is dedicated to producing, presenting, and educating in its mission “to become a place for dance that is vital to the fabric of social and cultural life in New York, America, and beyond.”

This week Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance kicks off the inaugural New York Live Arts season with the exciting Body Against Body program: “Monkey Run Road” (1979), “Continuous Replay” (1977/1991), and “Valley Cottage: A Study” (1980) will be performed September 16, 18, 21, 23, and 25, with “Duet x 2” (1982), “Continuous Replay,” and “Blauvelt Mountain” (1980) scheduled for September 17, 20, 22, and 24. “Valley Cottage” and “Monkey Run Road” are being performed in New York for the first time since their premieres. “Continuous Replay” will also feature live music played by John Oswald or DJ Spooky as well as a rotating cast of guest performers, including Matthew Rushing from Alvin Ailey, Janet Eilber and Blakeley White-McGuire from Martha Graham, Arthur Aviles from Typical Theater, Elena Demyanenko from Trisha Brown, Jennifer Goggans from Merce Cunningham, Megan Sprenger from mvworks, and Richard Move from MoveOpolis! Jones will take part in a preshow talk with Marcia B. Siegel on September 21 and a postshow discussion with Janet Wong, DTW/NYLA artistic director Carla Peterson, and the nine-member Bill T. Jones company on September 23. The premiere gala takes place September 15. Amid this flurry of activity, Jones was able to squeeze in some time to answer a few questions from twi-ny.

twi-ny: Last December, when the merger between Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theater Workshop was announced, you said, “We are doing something that supposedly can’t be done.” Now you are about to present your first season together. How did you, in fact, get it done?

Bill T. Jones: At the core of this merger was collaboration, and that’s exactly how this inaugural season came together. Carla Peterson spearheaded the curation process, and our talented staff and board of directors have worked tirelessly to bring ideas and resources to the table to make this institution a leader in the performing arts community and a home for movement-based artists. I am very excited about the artists on our season and am proud of the new programs we’re building.

New York Live Arts season kicks off with Bill T. Jones’s “Body Against Body” program

twi-ny: For your first series of performances at NYLA, you are revisiting some of your most iconic works, including the third iteration of “Continuous Replay.” Why did you choose these particular works for this inaugural season?

BTJ: Body Against Body is a program that the company premiered earlier this year (at the ICA/Boston) and we’re now touring it extensively in the upcoming season. It only seemed fitting that we would open the inaugural season of New York Live Arts with this program: It consists of some of the earliest pieces that Arnie Zane and I created together — two of which [“Valley Cottage” and “Blauvelt Mountain”] we premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in the early ’80s.

The newest reconstruction on the program, which will premiere at New York Live Arts, is “Valley Cottage: A Study.” This work has not been seen since Arnie and I first performed it in 1981. I think collectively these seminal works give audience members a glimpse of my roots as a choreographer while also acknowledging New Yorks Live Arts’ foundation, rooted in both my company’s and Dance Theater Workshop’s history and legacy. I like to think of it as a looking back to look forward.

TWI-NY TALK: MINGMEI YIP

Artist, musician, storyteller, teacher, calligrapher, and novelist Mingmei Yip will help MOCA celebrate Dragon Boat Festival Family Day on July 31

DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL FAMILY DAY
Museum of Chinese in America
215 Centre St. between Howard & Grand Sts.
Sunday, July 31, $10, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
212-619-4785
www.mocanyc.org
www.mingmeiyip.com

Mingmei Yip’s given name means “bright and beautiful,” and it couldn’t be more appropriate for the vivacious, extremely intelligent, utterly engaging Chinese-born multidisciplinary artist, who earned her PhD from the Sorbonne and has lived in New York City since 1992. Mingmei is a journalist, lecturer, tai chi teacher, illustrator, calligrapher, painter, children’s book author, and novelist, having published three well-received tales of historical fiction, Song of the Silk Road, Peach Blossom Pavilion, and Petals from the Sky.

On Sunday, July 31, at 12 noon she’ll be at the Museum of Chinese in America for the second annual Dragon Boat Festival Family Day, telling stories and playing the traditional qin. The celebration will also include a poetry workshop with author Janet Wong, gallery tours, arts & crafts, and much more. Hard at work on her next novel, Mingmei discussed her career and dragon boats with twi-ny.

twi-ny: You have been at the Museum of Chinese in Americas for many events, at both the old and the new venues. What are your impressions of the museum’s new space on Centre St.?

Mingmei Yip: I like the new place! It is very spacious for people to look around, especially the area where they display the books and the permanent exhibition. There are also large rooms for different kinds of events, such as the calligraphy workshop I did earlier this year.

twi-ny: You are a multidisciplinary artist with a wide range of talents. How did you develop such a diverse group of interests?

MY: I am very grateful to my parents — who are unfortunately no longer in this life — who sent me to take painting and music lessons at a very young age. Unlike some children who hate to practice the piano, I loved it! Later, my love of music led me to take up an ancient Chinese stringed instrument called the qin, on which I now perform professionally. I was recently invited by Carnegie Hall to play at its Ancient Paths, Modern Voices Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture. My next concert will be at Smith College on August 8. I am also doing a few storytelling events and calligraphy workshops for children.

twi-ny: Do you get different kinds of satisfactions from each artistic discipline?

MY: I do get different kinds of satisfaction from each of my artistic activities. Now my focus is on writing my novels. My third, Song of the Silk Road, just came out. It is an adventure and love story set along China’s most fabled route with the lure of a three million dollar reward.

The bright and beautiful Mingmei Yip lives up to her name in many ways

twi-ny: Might you be able to share any details with us about your next book?

MY: My next novel is The Skeleton Women, set in the thirties in Shanghai — the same era as my first novel, Peach Blossom Pavilion — to be published by Kensington Books in 2012. In China, femme fatales were known as skeleton women because their charm and scheme could reduce a man to a skeleton. For a susceptible man, the change from mansion to homelessness could happen in the blink of a mascaraed eye. In The Skeleton Women, the protagonist is known as a nightclub singer but is actually a spy for a powerful gangster organization trying to topple a rival gang!

twi-ny: Your novels touch on the changing sociocultural landscape of China on a very personal level. You were born in China; do you ever go back? What do you see as some of the positive changes occurring in China today, and what are some of the negatives?

MY: I go back to China very often, mainly to do research for my future novels or to play at qin events. I’m very glad to see that as China modernizes, things are clean and convenient. However, I am less happy to see the big cities occupied by foreign chains like McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and expensive designer boutiques.

twi-ny: You will be performing as part of MOCA’s Dragon Boat Festival Family Day. Does the Dragon Boat Festival hold any personal memories for you?

MY: The Dragon Boat Festival is to honor Qu Yuan, the patriotic poet. But what I remember from childhood is the tasty dumplings and exciting Dragon Boat races!

TWI-NY TALK: EMILY EPSTEIN & ELON JAMES WHITE

It is a match that could only be made in New York City. Elon James White is a Brooklyn-born sociopolitical humorist who is tailor made for this postracial Obama age. Emily Epstein is a Philadelphia-born comedian and writer who moonlights in children’s publishing. He’s black. She’s white. He’s a former Southern Baptist whose grandfather was a preacher. She’s a bat mitvah’d Jewish girl whose father was in finance. They live in Crown Heights, a region not exactly known for bringing blacks and Jews together in peaceful harmony.

Both love being onstage, where Elon proposed to Emily during the July 20 live podcast of “Blacking It Up,” one of the myriad projects Elon is involved in, many with Emily. White, who founded the Brooklyn Comedy Company and also hosts the hit web series This Week in Blackness, is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and has appeared on MSNBC, VH-1, and CNN. Emily, who refers to herself as “an ethnically ambiguous little lady,” runs the Connotation Variety Comedy Show with Selena Coppock and Dan Cartwright every Wednesday at 7:00 at Luca Lounge in addition to making appearances in clubs all over the city. Just as their proposal video began to go viral, they discussed their suddenly very public relationship in our latest twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: Emily, how surprised were you when Elon began proposing? Did you feel compelled to say yes because you were onstage in front of an audience and being videotaped?

Emily Epstein: Yes, yes, I was surprised. (Not that you can necessarily tell from my face.) I did feel compelled to say yes—although it was tempting to flip over a table and run for my life.

twi-ny: If you had a dream proposal, how did this compare?

EE: I’ve actually never given it much thought. If I had my choice, I might have gone for something slightly more private, as being a comedian you put a lot of your life out there. That being said, when I watched the video it made me very happy. I think it really perfectly captures who we are both separately and together.

twi-ny: Elon, how long were you preparing for this? Did you have any fall-back plans if Emily said no or something like “I need to think about it”?

Elon James White: Well, the idea of proposing was in the ether for years now, but in the past few weeks I decided to lock it in. Admittedly, I didn’t have a real backup plan for a “No.” I’m sure crying and drinking Jameson onstage would have worked.

twi-ny: Which one of you is really blacker?

EE: Who’s blacker? People do like to weigh in. I think my musical taste errs on the darker side. Then again, every podcast, show, or project Elon starts has the word “black” in it. I’d call it a tie?

EJW: Depends. Do you mean skin color or soul?

Elon Loves Emily: White proposes to Epstein onstage during live podcast

twi-ny: Who ended up being right about the shirt you argue about in the video?

EE: It’s complicated. He bought me a shirt that I didn’t wear often enough for his liking, so he took it back. (So inappropriate!) I still think it was a women’s medium, though.

EJW: Oh, I’m right. Wait—I’m engaged now. She’s right.

twi-ny: Will the music at your wedding be more like John Mayer or Talib Kweli?

EJW: I prefer John Williams. Especially if our first dance can be to the Imperial March.

EE: I hope there’s more Talib Kweli. I’d be very happy to ban John Mayer for life. God help us if our iPod gets played—Elon has downloaded about 2,000 hours of John Williams on there. Not to mention the Spice Girls.

twi-ny: Once you are a married couple, might you plan on doing more shows together, even working up a new kind of act à la Burns & Allen, Lucy & Desi, or Stiller & Meara and taking it on the road?

EE: Once we’re a married couple? We just got engaged! We’ve talked about coordinating on stuff together before and we have in the past. I certainly wouldn’t be against it. We just have to make sure that working together doesn’t make us want to kill each other since we both have big personalities. (At least, that’s the polite way to put it.)

EJW: Once we are a couple, the act that will be my number one priority is the “Elon and Emily Love Each Other” act. You may insert your “awww”s here.

You can find Emily on Facebook and Twitter (@emeps) and Elon on Facebook and Twitter (@elonjames).