Open Studios, a Dance Performance , & a Panel Discussion at KinoSaito

Verplanck, NY (April, 2025) – KinoSaito is pleased to announce Open Studios with artists in residence Theresa Wong and Pepe Lopez from 11 am to 3 pm, a dance performance at 3 pm by Chizuru Tanaka, and a Panel Discussion with Soli Pierce and Bruce Odland at 4 pm on Saturday, May 10, 2025. The events are open to the public free of admission with light refreshments and will take place at KinoSaito’s at 115 7th Street in Verplanck, NY.

Open Studios, first to take place during the day, will give attendees an exciting glimpse into KinoSaito’s resident artists’ works in progress and their practices.

The Artists in Residence

Theresa Wong is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and intermedia artist whose work encompasses composition, improvisation, and the synergy of multiple disciplines. Originally active in the field of design, she embarked on her current artistic path after encountering experimental music while working as a designer in Venice, Italy. As a cellist and vocalist, Wong has forged a unique vocabulary on her instruments through extensive explorations in new playing techniques, alternative tunings, and the timbral merging of singing and playing together.

Wong’s compositions include Fluency of Trees for solo cello and voice which premiered at the Other Minds Festival in 2022, She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees, commissioned by pianist Sarah Cahill for The Future Is Female project, and The Unlearning, a multi-media song cycle inspired by Francisco Goya’s Disasters of War etchings, released on Tzadik. Her long-time collaboration with Long String Instrument inventor Ellen Fullman includes Harbors, released on room40 and chosen as one of Wire’s top 50 releases of 2020. Their new work, Soundless, extends Wong’s string explorations into just intonation electric guitar and electronics, and has been presented at the Volume Festival in Sydney, MOCA Los Angeles, and Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn. Wong is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition and a 2012 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow. She is the founder of fo'c'sle, a record label dedicated to releasing adventurous music from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Originally from Schenectady, New York, Theresa currently resides in Berkeley, California.

Pepe Lopez (b. 1966, Caracas, Venezuela) is an artist who lives and works between Paris and Caracas. His work is based on a vast trajectory of diverse transmutation. He explores the map of the social spectrum through the translation of aesthetic codes, while developing his perception and concepts in a prolific variety of mediums such as textiles, objects, collages, paintings, installations, photography, video, and performances.

As part of López's research as an artist, he has gained wide experience curating major multidisciplinary and collective art projects at The Puffin Foundation in New York City and Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, among other prestigious institutions. He has also exhibited his work at the New York Museum of Arts and Design, Mercosur Art Biennial in Brazil, La Havana Biennial, Ruya foundation and The Gasworks in London, Museo Amparo in Mexico, Museo Rosario in Argentina, among others. He has been working with creative communities like Todasana village, where the artist has developed a project of artistic exchange with drum makers and musicians since 2012.

López work is deeply rooted in the foundations of abstraction, but his motivation, process and meanings question crucial aspects of contemporary life such as aesthetics, identity, simulation, consumerism and communication, among others, which allows the artist to connect: the individual with the community, the arts with the politics and the pain with the beauty. In Guapisimas series, the artist maps global interactions. Pepe López beckons his audience to confront the reality of global consumerism through cultural codes of society. By painting and weaving fashion industry logos and manga characters on traditional indigenous baskets, a cartography of consumerism, a cultural exchange or syncretism which occurs in the outskirts of Puerto Ayacucho in the borderline of the Amazon rain forest, transforming these simple objects into allegorical representations of their beauty.

The artist has a very particular way of inventing his methods of communication, developing several series of works at the same time. He walks through cities with a supermarket cart, recording his path with a video camera while collecting trash, which later, in his studio, he classifies to use for his urban sculptures and costume designs.

Following Open Studios, dancer Chizuru Tanaka will fill the galleries with the gift of Dance. This site-specific performance, which makes heavy use of improvisation, will spread throughout all three of KinoSaito’s galleries, responding to each current exhibition.

About Chizuru Tanaka

Chizuru Tanaka was born and raised in Japan. She began her formal dance training during college, graduating with a B.A. in Music and Dance from the University of Wisconsin, then attending the Alvin Ailey Dance School for three years. Upon completing Alvin Ailey, she attended the pre-professional programs at Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet School. In addition to classical and contemporary styles, Chizuru trained in jazz, jazz funk, hip hop, and house. She joined the Harmonia Opera. Company in 2009 while also performing repertoire with Nathan Trice, DMC (of Run DMC) Rie Okamoto, Brian Freedman, Complexions, and Alonzo King. She has performed at the Joyce Soho Theater, The Kennedy Center Washington, DC, City Center NYC, Ailey City Group Theater NYC, Lincoln Center Out Door Concerts, Central Park Summer Stage, and Shinnyo-en Festival in Tokyo, Japan.

The day will end with a Moderated Artist Talk and Panel Discussion with artists Soli Pierce and Bruce Odland. This discussion is a deep dive into the world of the immersive installation Sound Forest/ Between Worlds, which consists of interactive wooden sound sculptures and a meticulously orchestrated audio environment. RSVP for this discussion is recommended.

For information on the artists in residence, please visit https://www.kinosaito.org/current-resident-artists. For information on events, visit https://www.kinosaito.org/events or https://www.kinosaito.org/performances. For any other information, contact Gallery Director Megan Meadowlark at 914-293-7468 or megan@kinosaito.org.

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About KinoSaito
KinoSaito is a nonprofit art center founded in 2018, dedicated to the creation of abstract art. We are committed to nurturing art experimentation across all mediums and perpetuating the legacy of our founding muse and Japanese-American artist, Kikuo Saito (1939-2016). The center opened in 2021 upon renovation of the former St. Patrick’s Catholic School located in Verplanck, NY, and since opening our doors, has served an intergenerational audience of 3,500 annually.

KinoSaito Programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.