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Lily Cai, the former principal dancer with the Shanghai
Opera House, is a prominent member of the San Francisco Bay Area's dance
community. Since coming to the United States, Lily Cai has choreographed
dozens of new works and has expanded traditional Chinese dance forms
into contemporary dance and theatrical settings. She has received numerous
awards and grants for new works, and is considered a major authority
and resource in Chinese dance in the Bay area. In 1988 she established
the Lily Cai Chinese Dance Theater, a resident dance company of Chinese
Cultural Productions. Presenting a unique variety of classical, folk,
and modern dances complemented by dazzling costumes and both traditional
and original music, the company has performed and toured extensively
in the United States and Europe.
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Born in Brooklyn, Candida Alvarez attended Fordham
University and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work
has been exhibited in several one-person exhibitions as well as numerous
group exhibitions. She was awarded an Artist Fellowship from Art Matters
in New York City in 1989 and a Regional Fellowship from the National
Endowment for the Arts in 1988.
"I see an integration of transparent
glass and opaque glass. Visually this can be very exciting because
unlike clear glass, opaque glass can be seen at night. So while all
the other colors fade into darkness, there will be shapes that can
still be seen. Although this proposal appears fairly representational,
I trust in the power of transmitted light to alter that perception
into a magical and powerful arrangement of form and color." --
Candida Alvarez, 1994
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Dawoud Bey's earliest photographic exploration
evolved into a five-year project documenting the people and streets
of Harlem, New York. Through most of the 1980s Bey continued to work
within the realm of "street photography," making photographs in such
cities as Syracuse, Rochester, Washington, DC, and New York, recording
African Americans in the urban environment.
In his most recent body of work, began in 1991,
Bey records American youth culture and urban style. His subjects, primarily
young adults, use fashion and their own bodies to construct places of
personal power. These large scale works, made in various American cities
using the rare 20X24 Polaroid Camera, recall certain historical paintings
in both their lavishiness and scale, creating what Bey has called, "an
unabashedly lush and romantic rendering of people who seldom receive
that kind of attention."
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