Performance
becoming ancestral mud
becoming ancestral mud embodies, remembers, and imagines femme and queer ancestors from my ancestral village in the northern Shaanxi region of northwest China. Weaving in oral history interviews with my relatives, creation story, folk songs, and spiritual worships, this solo performance offers a coming-of-age story that rekindles ancestral returns, queer lineages, and ecological entanglements.
How do we hold space for grief in the long duration of collapse? As the lotus grows in mud, what else might emerge in the cycles of violence and loss? How might we search for grammars of queer belonging within—not outside of—our abundant ancestral and diasporic lineages?
becoming ancestral mud was developed, in part, with assistance from the Orchard Project (www.orchardproject.com), Ari Edelson, Artistic Director.”
Temple of our ancestral dreams
“Temple of Our Ancestral Dreams” is a series of public performance ceremony that activates Boston Chinatown as a temple—a site of spiritual refuge. The ceremony will be activated in Boston in Spring 2026
“Temple of Our Ancestral Dreams” is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation and the Fund for the Arts at NEFA.
ART BREAKS:
imagine care and embody wellbeing
Pao Arts Center, in collaboration with BCNC Family Services, welcomes Boston-based theater and performance artist Wenxuan Xue as our Artist-in-Residence. Over a six-session workshop series, Art Breaks, Wenxuan will guide BCNC staff and childcare professional in exploring creativity, art-based self-care, and cultural identity, to foster stronger connections and a deeper sense of belonging among those who support immigrant youth.
Workshops will include nonclinical therapeutic activities, offered in English and Chinese by the artist, ensuring multilingual accessibility. This initiative responds to high stress and burnout in youth-serving professions, equipping staff with arts and culture tools that support their work and well-being.
