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The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘They feel cleansed, they cry … some really don't like it!' The 12-hour psychedelic theatre-rave Trance
Naked performers covered in paint roll around atop dirt and foliage. Menacing sculptures hang from the ceiling and walls. The costumes have a beastly quality. At one point, a stream of feathers are strewn across the stage; at another, pink petals float down from above. This is Trance, an immersive psychedelic experience inspired by an eclectic mix of influences from electronic music and rave culture to Buddhism, cartoons and Japanese Butoh dance theatre. When 39-year-old Chinese artist and director Tianzhuo Chen first had the idea for Trance in 2019, it was to accompany a solo exhibition of his work at M Woods Museum in Beijing. The initial result was a three-day performance with each fraction spanning 12 continuous hours. It has since been whittled down to a single 12-hour-long production. This month, the show is on in London as part of the Southbank Centre's ESEA Encounters, a series celebrating east and south-east Asian arts and culture. It will serve as somewhat of an artistic homecoming for Chen, who did his undergraduate and master's degrees at Central Saint Martins and Chelsea College of Arts, respectively. 'London definitely influenced a lot of the club part of it,' he says over video call, dressed in a simple black T-shirt and clear-frame glasses. 'When I was living in the UK, I was pretty young and I experienced a lot of its club culture.' Since graduating in 2010 (and returning to China for some years after), he has made a name for himself by bringing the sacred and the subcultural together. In 2015, Chen founded the music-art-dance collective Asian Dope Boys, which earned a cult following for shows resembling both religious ceremonies and avant garde techno parties. In 2018, 20 members toured Europe performing at venues including London's Barbican, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Säule, an experimental space at Berlin's iconic club Berghain. He has lived in Berlin for the last three years. In 2024, at the city's HAU performance space, Chen premiered Ocean Cage, a video and performance piece inspired by stories from Lamalera. The fishing village in Indonesia is one of the last communities in the world where traditional whale-hunting still exists – the locals relying on it for both sustenance and as part of their spiritual beliefs. 'Because it's a volcano island, it doesn't grow anything, so they have to go whaling for their survival,' he says, explaining that they believe that their ancestors were reborn as whales in order to feed the village. With Trance, Chen wanted to bring people from different disciplines together. 'Musicians, performers, professionals, non-professionals, all of it,' he explains. Six years on, the genre-bending theatre-rave has been performed around the world. The latest version can be divided into six two-hour chapters, each reflecting on Buddhist themes, especially the idea of reincarnation, which in its cosmology has six realms: gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hell. 'In the beginning, they are performing from an image of hell,' he says of a sequence also referencing a series of 15th-century Japanese paintings that explore the different stages of death. 'A beautiful woman dies, her rotting corpse is eaten by dogs and becomes dust at the end,' he says. For him, the first chapter feels particularly meditative. 'It comes from the Buddhist idea of how you treat your body, and that there is nothing left other than flesh when you die.' By the final chapter, Trance shifts into what Chen calls a 'collective rave' and takes a more optimistic turn. 'The last part is the most human; everyone is dancing on their own,' he says. 'It's the part most strongly related to club culture, to dancing, to the expression of the individual.' It's also the point in the performance when those watching get most involved. 'So much of it is sharing the moment with the audience,' making them a part of 'this ritual and ceremony, a healing and cleansing-type moment'. Trance does not follow an explicit narrative, allowing it to evolve as it moves through continents and venues. 'It's a little bit site-specific, as the stage never looks the same,' he says. He points out that some venues are well-equipped, some offer outdoor space, and some are simply dilapidated buildings. But, as a result, he never gets tired of showing it. 'Little changes and different conditions keep this work progressing because it has to,' he says. At the Southbank Centre, 'we are creating a special design for it, and we are using their big theatre room to screen Ocean Cave'. He has also invited the Japanese dubstep musician Takeaki Maruyama, known professionally as Goth-Trad, to perform. 'I went to a lot of dubstep parties when I was in London before some of the legendary dubstep clubs closed down, so now feels like the time to embrace it,' says Chen. It's not every theatre production that can also double as a 12-hour rave. 'I get a lot of feedback,' says Chen. 'People say it's the best performance ever … they feel healed, they feel cleansed, they cried, all these feelings. And then some people really don't like it! All this strong emotion is what I appreciate. You don't have to understand the story or have any background knowledge – how you emotionally relate and connect with the piece is the most important thing to me.' Tianzhuo Chen: Trance is at Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer, London, on 18 July as part of the Southbank Centre's ESEA Encounters season, which runs 17-20 July
New York Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
An Early Celebration of America's 250th Birthday
Good morning. It's Thursday. Today we'll find out about an immersive art exhibition on a site that could become a casino. We'll also get details on 180 layoffs at Columbia University that were prompted by the Trump administration's cuts to federal research grants. Someday the giant video screens on a six-plus-acre site near the United Nations may be replaced by gambling tables and slot machines. But the deadline for applying for a casino license is weeks away, so for now the screens are being turned on. Tonight they will begin showing an immersive installation called 'Path of Liberty: That Which Unites Us.' It looks ahead to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which is next year. Michael Hershman, the chief executive of the Soloviev Group, the real estate firm that hopes to build a casino on the site, did not want to wait. 'I'm disappointed that I don't see more activity planning for events celebrating our birthday,' he said. 'I see planning for the FIFA World Cup, but I don't see much for our 250th birthday.' And, as someone who said that he had 'always believed that New York City is the center of the universe,' he mentioned a local angle: 'People may not remember, but New York City was the first capital of the United States.' (It was.) There may be fewer applicants than had been talked about when state regulators announced the timetable. Last month Las Vegas Sands, one of the largest casino operators in the world, dropped its bid for a casino on the site of Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Other prospective applicants include Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, who wants to open a casino at Citi Field in Queens with Hard Rock International; the Hudson Yards developer Related Companies, which has proposed a casino on the Far West Side of Manhattan with Wynn Resorts; SL Green Realty, which wants to open one in Times Square with Caesars Entertainment; and Bally's Corporation, which is looking to build one in the Bronx on a site that was once home to the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point. On Wednesday another bid, for a casino on Coney Island, advanced a step when the city's Planning Commission approved its land-use application and sent it to the City Council. The Hudson Yards bid is also awaiting action by the Council, which has already given Cohen's application a green light. The Bally's proposal is still being reviewed by the Planning Commission. There will be more regulatory hurdles after the bids come in. For each application, a community advisory committee will be set up to hold public hearings. The state's five-member Gaming Facility Location Board is overseeing the process and will make recommendations to the state Gaming Commission, which will make the final decisions. Hershman said he had not made campaign contributions to officials involved in the selection process — six officials including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams — as some of the other potential applicants have done. A report issued in March by the city clerk's office indicated that some of the would-be casino operators had spent millions on lobbying. 'Path of Liberty: That Which Unites Us' is being underwritten by Soloviev's charitable arm. Hershman said the idea behind the installation transcended local pride. 'I want to remind people about the freedoms we have here in this country,' he said. And so he sent a team around the country to interview people, looking for stories of 'what's right about America and what's wrong.' Videos of the interviews will fill the screens, and the installation will be open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. The exhibition was designed by C&G Partners and directed by the filmmaker Daniella Vale. The performer Lenny Kravitz will be on hand for the opening, Hershman said. 'He, like me, wants to have a civil conversation about values without creating enemies,' Hershman said. 'Too many people are talking past one another — 'If you don't agree with me, you're an enemy.' His philosophy is similar to mine, inclusion.' Hershman said that he met Kravitz after a concert several years ago, and that when he asked if Kravitz 'would do something like this, his answer was, 'Hell, yes.'' Expect partly sunny skies with a high in the mid-70s. In the evening, there will be rain with occasional downpours and a low of 57 degrees. In effect until May 26 (Memorial Day). The latest New York news Amid Trump's crackdown on Columbia, nearly 180 employees are laid off 'We understand this news will be hard,' Claire Shipman, Columbia University's acting president, wrote as the effects of the Trump administration's cuts to Columbia deepened. Shipman said that nearly 180 employees were being laid off. Their salaries had been covered by federal research grants. Columbia had been paying them temporarily as departments developed plans to weather the cuts. Shipman also said that Columbia was seeking other sources of funding. A Trump administration antisemitism task force in March cut $400 million in funding to the university because of what it said was Columbia's failure to protect Jewish students from harassment, and demanded that Columbia make changes in how it functions. Columbia complied with an initial round of demands; Shipman said in a note on Tuesday that the university was continuing to negotiate for the return of the grants. On Wednesday afternoon, pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied part of the main library at Columbia in an apparent attempt to rekindle the protest movement of last spring. Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a protest movement on campus, said in a Substack post that it had wanted to 'show that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia's profits and legitimacy.' By evening, Shipman had authorized the police to enter the campus. The protesters in the library were refusing to identify themselves and disperse, she said in a statement, and a large crowd of people outside was creating a safety hazard. Soon after the police arrived, about 30 protesters were escorted out of the building and loaded into police buses by officers in riot gear. Like diamonds Dear Diary: In 1954, when I was 11, I traveled from Washington, D.C., to New York City to visit my camp friend, Judy, for a week. Thrillingly, my parents let me travel alone on the train. It was part of a planned 'historical adventure.' Another part involved returning alone by airplane. Judy's widowed father met me at Grand Central. I waited for him near the lost-and-found window. I remember looking up at the sky mural on the ceiling and feeling at home in the universe. Judy lived in a huge, old-fashioned apartment across from Central Park, with maybe 12-foot ceilings and tall windows hung with dark red velvet curtains. She had cats and an older brother who played the violin. Her father seemed old to me. He also seemed confident, which is probably why my parents trusted him to host me. He took us to museums and the public library and let us explore on our own via the subway. The family had gotten tickets to 'Peter Pan' on Broadway, with Mary Martin as Peter. On the day of the show, a big storm with high winds materialized. I was afraid we would miss the show, but Judy's father was undeterred. We walked and then ran together to the theater in the rain, without umbrellas. As we did, gusting winds shattered a window above us, and glass showered down onto our heads like diamonds. The play was magical, and the characters flew on wires. The next day I flew home on American Airlines. It was a very bumpy ride. — Ruth Henderson Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Stefanos Chen, Dana Rubinstein, Natasha Cornelissen and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@ Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
