Rohan Zhou-Lee Archives - Chicago Reader

A line of dancers, all of them Black, are caught at the moment of beginning a jump in the air. The men are shirtless and wear black trousers. The women wear beige slip dresses. The surface of the stage is covered in dirt.

Don’t wait for the knock on the door

by Irene Hsiao December 21, 2022December 21, 2022

The year 2022 was designated the “Year of Chicago Dance” by the city of Chicago, drawing a commitment from the mayor and several partner institutions to increase investment, collaboration, participation, and focus on dance in all its forms in Chicago. But if institutions are “humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain […]

Rohan Zhou-Lee, a Black Asian nonbinary person in gray spandex shorts, leather harness, and red short cape, leads a diverse group of people in a march while holding a microphone.

Arts & Culture

The Blasian March comes to Chicago

by Irene Hsiao July 22, 2022July 27, 2022

On plantations in the 1800s, plantation owners used diversity as a means of division. “We lay great stress on the necessity of having our labor mixed. By employing different nationalities, there is less danger of collusion among laborers,” reports an 1883 Planters Monthly article. Sowing division was essential to maintaining the oppression of the working […]