Sunday, February 9, 2025 9am to 6pm
Edith O'Donnell Arts & Technology Building (ATC), ATC Lobby Gallery
The exhibition Dual Lives: Chinese Opera in New York City --Photographs by Alan Govenar features over a dozen images that document Chinese opera performers. As noted in the Dual Lives exhibition catalog by independent curator and critic Barbara Pollack: “For more than twenty-five years, Govenar has documented the recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship, awarded annually since 1982 by the National Endowment for the Arts for excellence in the folk and traditional arts. In so doing, he has developed two nationally broadcast radio series, published books, produced interactive DVD-ROMs, and organized a touring exhibition in association with ExhibitsUSA. And it is this work that led him to Qi Shu Fang, a master of Peking-style Chinese opera, whose company is the focus of the current exhibition. Govenar and Mrs. Qi were only able to communicate through a translator, but when he interviewed and photographed her in 2001, he knew that he wanted to do more. […]. A mere photograph could barely capture the enormity of Qi Shu Fang's persona or her achievements. Govenar returned to this subject, over and over again, and featured Mrs. Qi in his young reader book Extraordinary Ordinary People (2006) and then in his film Master Qi and the Monkey King, a compelling documentary that follows the daily lives of the star and her performers as they prepare for a major performance in New York City. It took nearly ten years for Govenar to come up with a way to communicate the mesmerizing skill of these artists through photography, requiring him to rethink some of his preconceptions about what a documentary photography project should look like and how it should function.”
This exhibition documenting Chinese opera performers runs concurrently with the solo exhibition The Light in Between: Photographs by Alan Govenar, on view in the SP/N Gallery. The latter show, an exhibition of photographs, artist books, and other media by Alan Govenar, represents a 50-year retrospective. Through these images Govenar illuminates the deep texture of people and cultures that are often marginalized and overlooked. His photography embodies a highly original holistic approach, linked inextricably to his work as a writer, poet, novelist, playwright, folklorist, and filmmaker. By nature, Govenar is a collaborator, an artist committed to community engagement and proactive social change.
Govenar has authored more than 40 books, directed two dozen films, produced two 52-part radio series for national broadcast, created three off-Broadway musicals, and designed multimedia installations at PhotoLondon and the International Center of Photography.
BIOGRAPHY: Alan Govenar is a writer, poet, novelist, playwright, photographer, folklorist, and filmmaker. He is director of Documentary Arts, a non-profit organization he founded in 1985 to advance essential perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures. Govenar is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of more than forty books, including Boccaccio in the Berkshires, Paradise in the Smallest Thing, Stoney Knows How: Life as a Sideshow Tattoo Artist, Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Music, Untold Glory, Texas Blues: The Rise of a Contemporary Sound, Everyday Music, Texas in Paris, Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter, A Pillow on the Ocean of Time, See That My Grave Is Kept Clean: The World and Music of Blind Lemon Jefferson (coauthored with Kip Lornell), and Deep Ellum and Central Track: Where Cultures Converged (coauthored with Jay Brakefield).
His photographs and artist books are in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.), San Francisco Museum of Art, Chicago Art Institute, Columbia University, New York Public Library, Museum of Modern Art (New York), and Museum of Fine Arts (Boston). Govenar has produced and directed numerous films in association with NOVA, PBS and ARTE. His feature-length documentaries Down in Dallas Town: From JFK to K2, Looking for Home, Myth of a Colorblind France, Extraordinary Ordinary People, Tattoo Uprising, The Beat Hotel, Master Qi and the Monkey King, and You Don’t Need Feet to Dance are distributed by First Run Features.
Govenar’s off-Broadway musicals Blind Lemon Blues and Lonesome Blues (created with Akin Babatundé) and Texas in Paris have been staged at the York Theatre (NewYork), Forum Meyrin (Geneva), Maison des Cultures du Monde (Paris), Leidse Schowburg (Leiden), and other theatres in Europe and the United States.
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Sunday, February 9, 2025 at 9:00am to 6:00pm
More dates through March 1, 2025
Edith O'Donnell Arts & Technology Building (ATC), ATC Lobby Gallery
800 W. Campbell Road, Richardson, Texas 75080-3021
free
Undergraduate Students, Faculty & Staff, Alumni, General Public, Prospective Students, Graduate Students, International Students
UTD strives to create inclusive and accessible events in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you require an accommodation to fully participate in this event, please contact the event coordinator (listed above) at least 10 business days prior to the event. If you have any additional questions, please email ADACoordinator@utdallas.edu and the AccessAbility Resource Center at accessability@utdallas.edu.