With a 2020 social media release in response to global quarantine, Maggie Menghan Chen’s Body Building Exercise offered a playful response to her depression and sedentary lifestyle during COVID-19. After a week in bed during lockdown, Chen began this project to create a message of optimism, solidarity, and joy.

Body Building Exercise combines performance, spirituality, and the broadcast power of digital culture. It features Chen and Vivian Yao dancing to the soundtrack created by Shanghai-based producer and PC Music-affiliate, felicita. Liu Cunjun‘s videography references the user interface of an arcade dance machine, and Chen and Yao wear costumes designed by Yu Wei, styled by Morrissey Yang and S/ash.

The tutorial incorporates dance and music elements from Zumba, hip hop, krump, vogue, and ultimately metal to offer an outlet for the pent-up energy of an international community in isolation. Now, five years after the start of the pandemic, moCa Cleveland presents this artwork for the first time to give museum visitors a chance to release energy and emotion by moving together in public.