SHIFT~ performance salon
​presents:
Portrait of 2 (1 after another)
with Sharon Mansur & Pingping Zhang
Starseeds Rising, Winona, MN, Dakota land
July 12, 2025

A multi-disciplinary experiment infused with creativity, counting and confluence.
.
Performance photos and video by: InSite Arts and Healing


"SHIFT~ has provided a space for me to reflect on my past experiences through art and movement, helping me see myself and everything around me from a profoundly different perspective.."
~Pingping Zhang

Pingping Zhang (she/her) is a professor of mathematics education at Winona State University. Because of her strong interests in arts, she recently started pursuing a Studio Art degree with five minors, including dance, music, photography, sustainability, and TESOL. She serves on the WSU orchestra as a violinist and is a board member of the Bluff Country Co-op. When Pingping is not busy with schoolwork or hobbies, she loves to hang out with her husband, daughter, two dogs, a cat, three chickens, pet fish, shrimps, and snails.

Sharon Mansur (she/her) is a SWANA/Arab American dance and interdisciplinary experimental
artist, educator, curator, and community mover and shaker based in Winona, MN, Dakota land. She loves creating artistic opportunities for people to connect and engage. Sharon is currently the director of The Cedar Tree Project, amplifying regional, national and international creative voicesfrom the SWANA/Arab diaspora, and curator of SHIFT~ performance salons.​

Poetry reading included:

A Certain Clarity: Selected Poems
by, Lebanese/Syrian American poet Lawrence Joesph

Over Darkening Gold (excerpt)
So here we are. Thieves stealing from thieves
in a society of complex spheres, 
wondering what you should do. And still
stars blown outside the eye's corner.
 

Key Themes explored:
Revisiting childhood
Patterns: math, visual art, music, body-movement
Culture via art
Collaboration as conversation/response