Blurring the line between movement and paint

Ben Rodriguez-Cubenas, program director at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, says: "I think his aesthetic is beautiful because it brings together both Eastern and Western traditions, so everyone can connect to it. And that feels especially important today when the world is so divided. A cultural exchange like this really brings people closer. His work inspires people — many here have said how deeply moved they were by it."

Jose Gabriel Capaz, a Cuban painter who also received a residency from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, says he sees a universal combination in Shen's work.

"I love when an artist works in a more complete, universal way, not limited to the canvas. In this case, it's amazing, and I really enjoy it. I think it's a mix of Western and Chinese art, not national, but something beyond that.

"I can see this fusion as something very much of the 21st century. For me, everything belongs to one world, one culture, not two separate ones. Sometimes people find it difficult to understand that, but I think the world is one now, and we all need to bring our energy together as one," Capaz says.

At the opening event at the Katonah Museum of Art, Shen Wei Dance Arts performed excerpts from the 2004 creation Connect Transfer. Dressed in blue, pink, yellow and purple, the dancers' bodies dipping in multicolored paint leave their marks on the canvas floor, creating a colorful abstract painting.

Chelsea Retzloff is a former dancer with Shen Wei Dance Arts who now serves as the company's administrator and education director. She has performed as a "stroke dancer "many times to transfer Shen's artistic ideas onto canvas.

"I have been completely covered in paint many times, and it takes many days to wash it off. But it is really fun. It's very cold, and it's very slippery, and it really tests your ability as an artist to make decisions quickly. It really challenges you in a different way than regular modern dance," she says.

Retzloff has performed in China many times while touring with Shen Wei Dance Arts. As an American performer, she says interpreting works deeply rooted in traditional Chinese art can be both challenging and rewarding.

"As an American performer, I'm very muscular, I'm very athletic, and it took so much work internally to be able to perform the Chinese elements of Shen Wei's work. I had to really change and develop my inner life, to be sensitive and to be able to have ... an inner mindscape that you can really use to transcend yourself to another place," she says, adding that it was one of her favorite things about working with Shen — how much it challenged her to "change and grow as a person and as an artist".

Shen's most famous work, Scroll Painting, was performed at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The work demonstrated the close relationship between painting and dance, typical of Shen's approach to art: several dancers creating a huge Chinese ink painting with their bodies watched by the world.

The new works Shen is now creating, which combine dance, painting, writing and music, will tour in both the West and the East next year.

Contact the writer at minluzhang@chinadailyusa.com