​​An Afternoon Journey with Shen Wei: STILL / MOVING

Presented by The Serica Initiative, in partnership with the Katonah Museum of Art and The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Join us for an extraordinary cultural excursion beyond the city, where visual art and live performance meet in one unforgettable afternoon with the world-renowned artist and choreographer Shen Wei, known for his incredible work as Principal Choreographer for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony.

On Saturday, October 18, 2025, guests will travel by private charter bus from Manhattan to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Pocantico Center and the Katonah Museum of Art (KMA) for an exclusive first look at the landmark exhibition Shen Wei: STILL/MOVING.

Your $50 ticket includes:

• Roundtrip charter bus transportation from Manhattan’s Columbus Circle

• Entry to both exhibitions at Pocantico and the KMA

• Exclusive live performance of Connect Transfer by Shen Wei Arts at the KMA

• Artists Talk between Shen Wei and the KMA’s Director and Chief Curator Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe

• Drinks and hors d’oeuvres served at the Katonah Museum during post-performance reception

• Complimentary bottled water on the bus (guests are welcome to bring their own snacks)

Your Saturday Journey with Shen Wei:

• 2:00 PM | Depart Manhattan (Columbus Circle)

• 3:00 – 4:00 PM | Explore Shen Wei: STILL/MOVING exhibition at The Pocantico Center, Tarrytown, NY 

• 4:00 – 4:30 PM | Bus from Pocantico Center to Katonah

• 4:30 – 5:00 PM | Explore Shen Wei: STILL/MOVING exhibition at the KMA

• 5:00 – 6:30 PM | Live Performance of Connect Transfer and Artist Talk at the KMA

• 6:30 – 7:00 PM | Cocktail Reception at the KMA

• 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM | Return to Manhattan

  
  

**This is a rare opportunity to engage directly with Shen Wei and witness his artistry up close, across two extraordinary settings. Get your tickets now!

About the Exhibitions for Shen Wei: STILL/MOVING 

RBF Pocantico Exhibit Information

Katonah Museum of Art Exhibit Information

Shen Wei: STILL/MOVING commemorates thirty years of Shen Wei’s visionary career as a dancer, choreographer, visual artist, filmmaker, and global cultural ambassador. This unprecedented joint exhibition between the Katonah Museum of Art and The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund illuminates the full scope of the artist’s trailblazing practice, offering rare access to Shen Wei’s paintings, works on paper, choreographic compositions, short films, and video highlights from the Shen Wei Dance Arts repertoire—including new pieces never before exhibited in the United States.

Shen Wei’s visual art transcends cultural and geographic boundaries, capturing the body in motion with dynamic brushwork that seamlessly incorporates Chinese calligraphy, allusions to post-World War II abstract movements such as Action Painting and Gutai, and traditional Chinese shan shui (mountain-water) painting. The resulting works evoke both abstraction and visionary landscapes, often monumental in scale and cinematic in quality, compelling the viewer’s gaze to move and dance across the surface.

At The Pocantico Center, the exhibition emphasizes Shen Wei’s dialogue with nature through his recent landscape paintings, whose immersive scale invites sustained contemplation.

At the Katonah Museum of Art, the presentation highlights the interdisciplinary nature of his oeuvre—the generative influence of music on his choreography, and the central role of movement in his paintings. Together, these two venues offer audiences a complete experience of Shen Wei’s multidisciplinary vision.

Shen Wei: STILL/MOVING is co-organized by The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Katonah Museum of Art. The exhibition is curated by Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe, Director and Chief Curator of the KMA, with support from Elizabeth Monti, Associate Curator at KMA, and Katrina London, Curator at The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Artist Biography

Shen Wei (b. 1968 in Hunan, China. Lives and works in New York, NY, U.S.A. and Paris, France) is an internationally renowned choreographer, dancer, director, and visual artist. He served as a performer with the Hunan State Xian Opera Company from 1984-1989. In 1991, the artist became a founding member of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company, the first of its kind in China. In 1995, Shen Wei moved to New York City for a fellowship from the Nikolais/Louis Dance Lab and subsequently founded Shen Wei Dance Arts in New York at the American Dance Festival in 2000. His company has toured to over 140 cities across 30 countries and received over 23 commissions from the American Dance Festival, BAM Next Wave, Dutch National Ballet, Edinburgh International Festival, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Kennedy Center, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Lincoln Center Festival, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Park Avenue Armory, Teatro di San Carlo, and the Shanghai International Festival among others. Shen Wei was the lead choreographer for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The Artist has been the subject of international solo museum exhibitions including at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Museum of Art and Design at Miami Dade College, and the Shanghai Power Station of Art. He has been the recipient of an Asian Cultural Council John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award, Dance Magazine Award, John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur “Genius” Award, Nijinsky Emerging Choreographer Award, Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement in choreography, and a US Artists Fellow award. The artist’s dance technique “Natural Body Development” has been widely taught in universities and dance conservatories.