On June 23rd, Wrightwood 659 and the Chinese American Museum of Chicago join Dragon Boat Festival celebrations worldwide in memory of the ancient Chinese poet, politician, and musician Qu Yuan. In Warring States Cyberpunk, Kongkee reimagines the story of Qu Yuan, transplanting his ancient and poetic soul into an android, merging the past with a rapidly approaching future. Honoring Kongkee’s retelling, Wrightwood 659 will present two live performances moving from the augmented, imagined future to practices rooted in millennia-old tradition.

The program will commence at 4 PM with the electronic compositions of acclaimed Japanese-born sound artist Kikù Hibino. The music will accompany the silhouettes of Kongkee’s vinyl window installation, as the sun projects them across the floors and walls of the Tadao Ando-designed fourth-floor corridor in a convergence of sound, light, and space. Hibino’s layered orchestration, inspired by nature’s rhythms and optical illusions, resonates with the dancing shadows of Kongkee’s bionic figures.

At 6 PM, the program will conclude with a ceremonial lion dance, a form that can be traced back to the end of the Warring States Period roughly 2,200 years ago. Performed by the Chicago Chinese Cultural Center’s dance troupe, the lion dancers weave their way through the exhibition to the beat of drums and cymbals, embodying a living link between timelessness and temporal.