- 2026
Sun and Moon Rotate to This Infinite Present Moment,
The 99 Verbs and Wishes for You, My Dear,
and to Our Nomadic Life (Rite) - 2026a certain necessity, concrete and durational actions
- 202599 Verbs and Wishes
- 2024Silent Flight (Part II)
- 2024it's factual, so vast
- 2024you and me, we grant this portrait the marvelous
- 2023Silent Flight
- 2023Compound Rite
- 2022Field Record 5: Sun, Moon, You
- 2022Compound Rite: Utopia or Oblivion (II)
- 2021Field Record 4: Every Motion is a Ritual ᠲᠠᠯᠠᠪᠠᠢ ᠵᠢᠨ ᠲᠡᠮᠳᠡᠭᠯᠡᠯ 4
- 2021Drift Upwards, Fall Downwards
- 2021Far Journey, Homeward
- 2021Doppelgänger
- 2020In Another Green World
- 2020Can You See Me? Can You Say Something?
- 2019Field Record II
- 2019Field Record 3
- 2019Compound Rite: Utopia or Oblivion
- 2019bare mind create action create bare mind
- 2019Oracle---------Alt Text for the Future
- 2018Field Record I
- 2018In Another Green World, She Was a Visitor
- 2018bird, bird
- 2017Reaching Nowness
- 2016Cloud Image
- Early Works
The 99 Verbs and Wishes for You, My Dear,
and to Our Nomadic Life (Rite)
2022, 2023, 2025, 2026-ongoing / 60:00 / choreographic performance / lumber, paint, tan sheep fur, fishing line, tap, LED film lights, haze machine, speakers
In the reality of life that anchors me, I set this work off—the warmth and light falling upon my left eye in late autumn 2011, a glass of milk, a lump of clear tear fluid—factual raw materials move me toward abstraction, grounding and lifting.
My desire is to delve into the heart of concrete moments and things given, sculpting sensations into weighty gestures possessing purity, or the form of an immaterial spirit unbound. In the breath between migration from gesture to gesture, follow the innermost tempo. Each gesture bears my body’s entire history. A gesture is a verb, an act of a wish; even the slightest shift can become an event.
Not merely sex or love juxtaposed with death; vast natural phenomena are set alongside the subtle tremors of animal fur. I perceive these pairings continually welling up within.
Towards the true fact, to remember and fully feel its vibrations, I lean slowly, greedily into stillness, then bone-deep movement within that absolute stillness; humble, vulnerable repetition; compulsively tracking necessity and precision, until I can calmly relinquish control. With faith in the process of discovery, I learnt how to continue practicing, what dance, what choreography, what art means to me. This work is one outcome of that search, a threefold measurement and calibration: with nature, with life, with the spirit.
A work is a mystery. It has meaning, yet meaning should be delayed in arriving.
It’s that moment of incredibly conscious solitude, a rite for intimate gathering, simultaneously a quiet reflection or simply rest.
Choreography: NiNi Dongnier
Performance: NiNi Dongnier, Zhengyang Zhang
Garment: NiNi Dongnier, Surgulen Mongolian Attire Atelier
Sound: Yi Xin Tong, Mauricio Pauly, Chingeltu
Lighting: Guy de Lancey
Photo: Shina Peng
Video: Lane Lang
Curation: Yuan Fuca
This work is made possible, in part, through support from initial research Inaugural Fellowship, with residency support from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and additional support from the Northeast Asia Art Archive. Special thanks to Barnard Movement Lab, David Zhang, and Trajal Harrell.
07/16-18/2026 initial research, New York City
05/20/2026 North Asia Art Archive, Erdaobaihe Town