Newton resident Master Calvin Chin will be sharing his mastery of martial arts in White Snake Projects‘ upcoming world premiere of MONKEY: A Kung Fu Puppet Parable at Boston’s Emerson Paramount Center in three performances, September 22-24.
Master Calvin Chin has been sharing his skills and passion for martial arts with the community. He opened his school, Calvin Chin’s Martial Arts Academy (CCMAA) in Newton, in 1996 after helping his mentor, Grand Master Kwong Tit Fu, founder of the Fu Hok Tai He Morn system, establish the Academy of Chinese Martial Arts in Boston and then in Cambridge. Located on Winchester Street, CCMAA offers classes to students of all ages, as Master Chin believes that martial arts offer many different benefits at every stage of life — from coordination and discipline to learning how to use the mind and body for self-awareness and understanding to help prevent age degeneration.
In honor of his late wife, he created the Helen Gee Chin Scholarship Fund, which has awarded over $155,000 in scholarships to martial arts students around the country to help them gain more knowledge and hone their skills.
Many of Master Chin’s students and practitioners perform at local Lunar New Year and other Asian festivals and compete in state, national, and international martial arts competitions.
MONKEY: A Kung Fu Puppet Parable is directed by Newton Highlands resident Roxanna Myhrum, a Boston-based theatre director who specializes in puppetry, opera, and theatrical performance in non-traditional spaces. She says that while she has a strong background in both opera and puppetry, and she was familiar with the Chinese Buddhist traditions that are referenced in the opera, she did not have a grounding in Kung Fu, so she began taking lessons at CCMAA in April 2022. She built relationships with Sifu (Master) Calvin Chin and several of the practitioners at the studio and was inspired by the multi-cultural, multi-generational community she found there. She said, “Not only have I gained movement skills and literacy in Kung Fu forms, but nurturing a diverse, supportive community of practice through creative engagement with traditional Chinese arts is something that I’ve tried to bring back to our community of performers as well.”
Inspired by Master Chin’s teachings, she asked him if he would help with the choreography for the production. Master Chin, an American-born Chinese, said he had heard a lot about the Monkey King legend and is familiar with the story. While using puppets is new to him, he said he had a lot of experience with lion dancing performances and believes it combines physical skills and artistry.
Two additional practitioners at CCMAA are also cast in the show: Lawrence Chan and Jasmine Chen.
White Snake Projects is an activist opera company making mission-driven work that unites artmaking with civic practice, envisioning a world where opera expands our collective understanding of community and transforms lives through creative storytelling.
The Chicago Puppet Studio (War Horse, Metropolitan Opera, Prototype Festival, New York Philharmonic, Lookingglass) created original life-sized Bunraku puppets for the opera’s three main characters: Monkey, Pig (Zhu), and Sandwoman (Sha).
MONKEY: A Kung Fu Puppet Parable will be performed September 22 and 23 at 7:30PM, and September 24 at 2PM, at Emerson’s Paramount Center Theater (559 Washington Street, Boston; 617-824-8400). Tickets are $25 – $185, with discounts of 10% for seniors and 50% for students or groups of four or more. Through White Snake Projects’ Ticket Access Program, free tickets are available to anyone who needs one and cannot afford it (email info@whitesnakeprojects.org).
