Brooklyn Museum. Photo: Courtesy of China Film Association

 
The Brooklyn Museum in New York featured Asian and Chinese art on Saturday night during the November's edition of its First Saturdays event.

The museum, which offers free admission on Saturday, presented a series of activities titled Crossing Asian America for visitors to learn more about Asia, including gallery tours, musical performances, and comedy skits performed by Asian actors.

A group of female Chinese musicians kick-started the night with a mini-concert during which each played different Chinese musical instruments such as the two-stringed erhu and Chinese drum.

Wearing qipao, a traditional style of dress, they played and sang songs including "Woman Who Wears Qipao" and "Chinese and Western" created by their lead musician Hu Zhihua.

Hundreds of visitors were attracted by their performance, packing the lobby of the museum where the stage was set.

"I think they demonstrated both the beauty of Chinese classic music and the charm of Chinese women," said a visitor who identified himself as George.

On the second floor of the museum, a tour in the newly reopened Arts of China galleries was led by assistant curator of the Asian Art department Susan L. Beningson.

Apart from introducing some newly-acquired pieces, the tour highlighted One: Xu Bing, an exhibition featuring one of China's most important living artists, which is on display until April 26, 2020.

The exhibition celebrates Xu Bing's close relationship with Brooklyn, where he lived in the 1990s and still maintains a studio today. He developed the iconic "square word calligraphy" as a system for writing English while living in Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, a community talk featuring an art project housed in the oldest store in Brooklyn's Chinatown, Wing on Wo & Co., also attracted dozens of visitors.

Representatives of the project shared their mission of nurturing the future of Brooklyn's Chinatown and preserving its rich cultural history.

The museum also held a hands-on session of calligraphy, teaching some 330 people how to create works on paper with brushpens.

First Saturdays has been held at the Brooklyn Museum for 20 years on every first Saturday evening of a month. It celebrates various themes with free admission and a family-friendly, diverse schedule running from 5 pm to 11 pm.