Guardians of the Earth and Sky at the Garden of the Phoenix 2025

Event Date: Saturday, July 19 · 2 - 4pm CDT

Come on an adventure with the Four Celestial Guardians: the White Tiger of the West, the Black Tortoise of the North, the Azure Dragon of the East, and the Vermilion Bird of the South!

Explore seasons, elements, colors, and constellations through storytelling, music, and dance in this interactive performance by Irene Hsiao in collaboration with dancers Amanda Maraist and Darling Shear, musicians Paige Brown and Hunter Diamond, tai chi practitioner Hau Kum Kniep, and storyteller Penny Li.

Altogether, this multicultural cast is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, French, English, Japanese, Korean, and Swahili – and the performance is created with participants of all ages, who will be invited to speak, sing, dance, and create artwork with us.

Performances are free, and art supplies will be provided to create headpieces to wear in this all-ages event. Dress for the weather and wear comfortable shoes for walking approximately one mile.

Guardians of the Earth and Sky

July 19, 2025, 2-4 PM

Garden of the Phoenix

6300 S. Cornell Ave

Free

Guardians of the Earth and Sky is presented as part of the Chicago Park District's Night Out in the Parks series, supported by the Mayor's Office and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The Night Out in the Parks program presents cultural events year-round in neighborhood parks throughout the city. The Chicago Park District in partnership with 100 local artists and organizations, presents engaging events and performances that enhance quality of life across Chicago and amplify the artistic and cultural vibrancy in every neighborhood. Through multiple disciplines, which include theater, music, movies, dance, site-specific work, nature programs, and community festivals, the series aims to support Chicago-based artists, facilitate community-based partnerships and programs, cultivate civic engagement, and ensure equity in access to the arts for all Chicagoans. For more information, please visit www.nightoutintheparks.com.

The 2025 performances of Guardians of the Earth and Sky are supported in part by Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community, Chinese American Museum of Chicago, Chinese Family Camp, and Jackson Park Advisory Council. Irene Hsiao created Guardians of the Earth and Sky in 2024 as part of her residency at the Heritage Museum of Asian Art with support from Chicago Park District's Night Out in the Parks, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, Chicago Awesome Foundation, Calumet Park Advisory Council, and Jackson Park Advisory Council.

About the Artists

Irene Hsiao is a dancer, writer, and multidisciplinary artist. She creates performances in conversation with visual art in museums, galleries, and public spaces, a practice that includes site-specific interaction with visual artworks and experimental engagement with artists, institutions, and the public. She is a 2025 Radicle Studio Artist at the Hyde Park Art Center, the 2024 Resident Artist at the Heritage Museum of Asian Art, inaugural Artist in Residence at the Smart Museum of Art in 2020 and 2021, 2022-23 Fellow at High Concept Labs, first Artist in Residence at 21c Museum Hotel in 2022-2023, and a 2020 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist. Her performances have been presented at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Smart Museum, EXPO Chicago, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Textile Week, Ragdale Foundation, Krannert Art Museum, Alma Art Gallery, Kavi Gupta Gallery, and more.

Vocalist, pianist and composer Paige Brown believes in the use of voice as a channel, and the use of the instrument/body as a voice. Having inherited a version of the deep, resonant voice of her father and her late grandfather, she rejoices in the ability to play inside that resonance, bringing that sound to bear in songs that speak of joy, love, grief, and hope. She draws from a broad spectrum of influences that range from high school madrigal singers to college gospel choir, skipping from soul to funk to folk and weaving through sounds somewhere in between. Emerging from her compositional chrysalis, she is currently developing the inner mechanisms and connections to deepen and externalize her own artistic practice more fully, reacquainting herself with the simple, playful practices that attracted her to Music, her first love.

Hunter Diamond is a creative woodwind and sound artist based in Chicago. Though he is most at home in the improvised music scene, a mixture of conceptual, composed, and improvised performance keeps him perpetually present in the interdisciplinary Chicago creative arts community. In 2021 Diamond founded Curio Records, which serves as the primary outlet for his recorded work. His latest release is Flesh of Fruit with sound artist Allen Moore which was released on Curio in March 2025.

Hau Kum Kniep began her journey in tai chi in 1978, learning the Yang style in Hong Kong and furthering her studies in Hawaii, China, and Taiwan. She has taught tai chi for thirty years at Columbia College, SAIC, and Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago.

Penny Li is a singer-songwriter who treats music as a personal diary—an intimate, intuitive reflection of her observations, emotions, and connections with the world. Multilingual, she creates and draws inspiration from Chinese, English, Korean, and Japanese music. Based in the Greater Chicago area, Penny is also an educator and development professional passionate about the transformative power of art interpretation and engagement. A lover of food, photography, psychology, and theatre, she finds creativity in all aspects of life.

Amanda Maraist is a movement deviser + improviser from the Texas gulf coast, living in Chicago. She co-directs bim bom studios + works collaboratively with movers, musicians and artists, most recently with Irene Hsiao, Helen Lee, Harlan Rosen, Gina Hoch-Stall, Chrissy Martin, Freedom From and Freedom To, Khecari, Ayako Kato / Art Union Humanscape and independently. Her movement work exists as both dance-making and physical space-making. Using authentic movement practices and meticulously rendered improvisational scores, her work is process-forward with a do-it-together demeanor.

Darling “Shear” Squire is a Chicago native with Atlanta roots and trained in Ballet, Modern, Jazz and African. After high school, Darling began dancing professionally with Bubba Carr, Cher’s choreographer, Rhonda Henriksen, Twyla Tharp, Tracy Vogt, Hinton Battle, and Lauri Stallings. As a freelance dancer/ choreographer, Darling has worked with The Fly Honeys, Soho House Chicago, EXPO Chicago, Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, MCA, Salonathon, Open TV and many others. Awards include: Impulstanz Between Gestures scholarship (Vienna, Austria), Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist, CDF 10X10 Choreographer, Links Hall CoMission Fellowship, 3Arts nominee (2019, 2022). Darling's career has been one with a strong spiritual center and allowance of universal well-being.

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