Lecture: Explorations of the Shadow World
Lecturer: Larry Reed，Ellen Zweig
Host and Interpreter: Bruce Bo Ding
Time: 8 May 2016, 15:00-17:00
Venue: Chronus Art Center(Building 18, No 50 Moganshan Road, Shanghai)
Language: English with Chinese translation
About The Lecture
In this lecture, two artists will present their individual work (Larry Reed’s work with shadows; Ellen Zweig’s work with video and earlier work with pre-cinema devices) and then discuss their collaboration that will result in a shadow/video installation. In the context of new media, it is important to explore “old new media,” (camera obscura, Pepper’s Ghost Illusion, shadow theater, magic bronze mirrors) in order to examine projected images as moments of wonder and delight.
About The Lecturers
Larry Reed (Director) is a nationally and internationally recognized theatre artist, who is a trailblazer in the contemporary shadow theatre field. In 1972, he founded Shadow Light Productions to nurture indigenous shadow theater traditions and to explore and expand the possibilities of the shadow theatre medium. Reed has pioneered contemporary shadow theater by integrating traditional shadow theater techniques – which he studied and performed for two decades – with American theater and film styles. He is one of the few Americans trained in Wayang Kulit, Balinese shadow puppetry, and has collaborated with artists from diverse backgrounds and traditions including Tibetan, Chinese, Indonesian, and American. Reed was voted one of the top 50 artists of the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995 and 1996 by SF Live/Metropolitan. Reed’s filmmaking experience includes producing, writing, and directing in the U.S., Mexico, Columbia, Taiwan, and Indonesia. His film Shadow Master, an intimate portrait of a family of Balinese performers, aired on PBS and Discovery. Fluent in five languages, His translations have appeared in the Asia Theater Journal and University of Hawaii Press. As a shadow artist, designer, and director, he has collaborated with Lee Breuer, Mabou Mines, the Mark Taper Forum, and the Santa Fe and LA Operas. As the Balinese shadow theater representative at the Indonesian National Theater Shadow Festival, he is one of few Westerners ever invited to perform at the festival.
Ellen Zweig has been working in film and video since the late 90s, creating videos and video installations. During a residency at VOOM-HD Lab, she made “The Lonely Girl,” a short documentary video about a Chinese opera star living in New York City. (screened at: Anthology Film Archive, 2006; Pacific Film Archive, 2007). From 2001-2007, she created a series of video portraits of Westerners who had some relationship to China and several installations (at DDM Warehouse, Shanghai; The CUE Foundation, New York) that dealt with her attempts to understand China and to learn Chinese. Since 2007, she has been working on an homage to the documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens and his last film, “Une Histoire du Vent," filming as Ivens did in China. From 2007-2013, she documented Z'EV's concerts, collecting and editing materials for the feature length video, "Heart Beat Ear Drum," her first documentary feature.
