Encounters: solo and duo work presented by Jingqiu Guan, dancer and Daniel Levin, cellist

Date: SATURDAY, July 26, 2025

Type of show: Music & Movement

Showtime: 7:30-9

Tickets: $15.00 + fees

Part I: Jingqiu Guan

Room: A Corporeal Dialogue Across Time
Set within a glowing translucent cube, this solo performance is inspired by poems etched into the walls by Chinese immigrants detained at San Francisco’s Angel Island (1910–1940) and recounts the dancer’s own immigrant story. The motion-capture technology triggers projected visuals based on the performer’s movement, creating a live dialogue between body, history, and image. The work explores how we listen to our past with openness and vulnerability.

Part II: Daniel Levin

Inner Landscape: Solo Cello Improvisation
About Daniel Levin's solo music: "The abstract nature of these improvisations derive in large part from the continually shifting emphasis upon the cello’s tactile qualities – the weight and density of tones, degrees of timbre and texture, percussive attacks, exaggerated dynamics, the colors of alien sounds – the object being “to invest the air with forms” (Hugh Kenner’s description of abstract expressionist process) that align into an alternative (that is, singularly personal), urgent and equally vulnerable, view of musical reality." - Art Lange, from the liner notes to Levin's most recent solo record ('solo" - ears&eyes records, 2025).

Part III: Duo

Encounter: Guan and Levin engage in duo improvisation, employing strategies of unison, complement, and juxtaposition to spontaneously create new work that is informed by the performances that took place earlier in the evening. There are three levels of encounter taking place: between each artist with their personal practice, between Guan and Levin, and between the performers and audience.

Bios:

Jingqiu Guan

Originally from Chengdu, China, Jingqiu Guan is a filmmaker, choreographer, dancer, and scholar. She is an Assistant Professor of the Practice at Duke University’s Dance Program. Jingqiu makes interdisciplinary performance work and dance film that engage with social issues and cultural memories. She has presented her films at festivals worldwide and won various awards. She recently completed her first feature documentary Mama Dancers, which explores the intersection of dance and motherhood. The film premiered at the DisOrient Asian American Film Festival in Oregon. Centering voices and expressions of women, immigrants, people of color, and people with disabilities, her work explores cultural identities, motherhood, and addresses issues of racial and disability justice. She is currently developing an evening-length multimedia dance theater that explores narratives of migration and immigration related to trains and railroads.

Daniel Levin

Cellist Daniel Levin is “one of the instrument’s most brilliant contemporary practitioners” (The Wire). He was born in Burlington, Vermont, and began playing the cello at the age of six. In 2001, he graduated with a degree in Jazz Studies from the New England Conservatory of Music and arrived on the New York City jazz scene shortly thereafter. Since then, Daniel has developed his own distinctive voice as a cellist, improviser, and composer. Ed Hazell noted upon release of Levin’s first record as a leader, “Cellist Daniel Levin is a major new voice on his instrument and in improvised music.”

Elements of European classical music, American jazz, microtonal and new music, and European free improvisation all figure prominently in his unique sound. He has performed extensively throughout the USA and Europe, and has recorded more than 20 albums as a leader or co-leader, which can be found on Clean Feed, HatOLOGY, Not Two, Trost, Riti, Mahakala, eyes & ears and various other record labels. Daniel is a REMIC Microphones and Glasser Bows Artist Endorser.

About The ArtsCenter
​The (NEW) ArtsCenter is located at 400 Roberson St. Carrboro NC. All shows are seated. We have a bar with wine, beer, and snacks. We also have water stations where you can fill up your own water bottle or if you need an eco cup, just ask! We do not charge for water. The ArtsCenter is now working regularly with COMPOST NOW and recycling all beverage products.