Performed at Queens Plaza (2022)
Performance Still
Videography: Blake Burda

Soundtrack generated with the voices of the artist and her mother, recordings in the NYC subway, and a poem composed of text seen in subway trains
Duration: 26:13:00
Artistic Director: Rengu Zhang
Sound Design: Rengu Zhang
Choreography: Alex Christie, Rengu Zhang, Nat Peterson, Yulai Fan
Performers: Alex Christie, Nat Peterson, Yulai Fan, Rengu Zhang

“Let Me Sleepwalk Through This City” (2022) is a performance that responds to the disorienting experiences of navigating the subway in a post-quarantine NYC. It is originally created to be performed in the subway. The response is three-fold. It is an attempt to feel, in a female and Asian body, at ease as if sleeping; it addresses the fantasy of personal enlightenment, woven by ad slogans¬in the subway; it professes the longing for connection after the quarantine. The movement and sound draw from jumbled visual and aural cues, and brief, close encounters with stranger-passers-by in the underground world. The soundscape imagines what it sounds like to be constantly spoken to by capitalism. The narrated poem is composed of text—ad slogans, published poems—culled in from train cars during subway rides. The poem grows indefinitely with more subway rides. The soundtrack mixes real-life recordings, starting with a folk song sung by me and ending with a lullaby sung by my mother. On the train, capitalism talks like a street-smart roommate who has insider knowledge on solutions to struggles of contemporary urban life. It lures with righteous, universal, humanitarian values. It coaxes me into the illusion of happiness as a result of spiritual, professional, romantic and material pursuits. This performance weaves fantasy with grittiness.

Performance still at “Asterism” (2022)
Curated by Allison Burnstein