Virtual Performances & Workshops
Jin Jin Team:
Puppet Designer, Builder, and Lead Performer - Hua Hua Zhang
Additional Performers - James Ofalt, XingXin Liu, Lisa Cocchiarale
Camera, Lighting, Editing - Adam Danoff
Jin Jin The Dragon
Educational Video Experiment - 20 minutes
In 2019, Hua Hua was approached by her friends at Young Audiences to develop new educational programming and workshops to bring to schools in addition to the popular East Meets West show. Inspired by the book "Jin Jin the Dragon" by Grace Chang, Hua Hua began experimenting with ideas of using cardboard shadow puppets in a circular performance setting. The students would sit all around her, and Jin Jin would travel through the class, meeting the other characters and interacting with the children.
Then, during the pandemic of 2020-2021, this idea evolved into a virtual, recorded adaptation. In 2023, Visual Expressions' team spent three days recording a 20 minute film version of the story as both proof of concept and to show to potential school audiences. Unfortunately, right around this time most schools were discontinuing their use of virtual assemblies, and so the project was deemed complete as an interesting experiment in video puppetry.
Dreams of Land
Live streaming & Pre-recorded performance - 55min
Dreams of Land is an innovative, interdisciplinary, cross-cultural performance for all ages. Artist Hua Hua Zhang and her performance team explores relationships, emotional states, and ways we process them using her unique lens off both Asian and Western viewpoints and attitudes. We learn much about ourselves from how we dream and how we each interpret them differently. And though we all come from different cultures and backgrounds, tere are universal truths in the Human experience that transcend national or racial divides. Through live sculpture, movement, theater, music, and shadow art performance this show presents a series of dreams that span the process of personal growth. World premiere on Nov 11, 2020.
Writer, Artistic Director, Puppet & Installation Sculptor - Hua Hua Zhang
Stage Manager, Camera, and Sound Technician - Adam Danoff
Music Composers - Liang Liang, Cory Neale, Jingzhe Wang
Performers - Hua Hua Zhang, Travis Daniel Draper, and Adam Danoff
Audience Feedback
"Dreams of Land is a majestic and ethereal experience. The show leads us with sincerity through Hua Hua's story by incredible and expressive means. This expression does not hide difficult emotions from a youthful audience and so carries the tradition of not speaking down to children. I personally appreciate the approach to material which blends the use of contemporary and traditional methods of storytelling which combine to create something unique. This show is incredible, meaningful, and impactful."
~ Matthew C. Shackelford - Free Library of Philadelphia
East Meets West
Live Streaming Performance - 45 min
Chinese Dragon
Live Stream Shadow Puppet Theater Workshop - 45 min
Students are introduced t othe history and culture of traditional Chinese shadow puppet theater and learn about characteristics of the mythological Chinese dragon. After a trip through the unique world of the artist's studio, students are guided in making their own dragon shadow puppet and shown how to create a shadow puppet show at home using a flashlight or cell phone and their imaginations to tell their own original stories. The workshop is also interactive, with real-time feedback from the artist and a question-and-answer period at the end.
Feedback from school:
"Thank you for an outstanding program on Wednesday at Hillside. It was a HUGE hit with the kids. I got a lot of positive feedback from teachers, the principal, and parents! I was able to join my son's class, and I loved it!
~ Janet Malin, VP of Cultural Arts, Hillside School
Hua Hua Zhang's Visual Expressions is a roster artist with "Young Audiences" and "Arts for Learning." For school performance and workshop inquiries in your area, please contact:
PA and NJ - www.yanjep.org/artist/hua-hua-zhang
Maryland - https://www.artsforlearningmd.org/
