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Building Asian American Community in Philadelphia

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This week on HowlRound, we'll be examining Asian American Theater and exploring the theme of the 4th National Asian American Theater Conference & Festival, "Home: Here? There? Where?"—Click here for the blog series, livestreaming schedule, and future video archive. Use #theNAATF and #newplay in Twitter.

Home: Here…There…Where?  The theme of this year’s National Asian American Theater Festival and Conference (aka the “ConFest”) strikes a particular chord for me, a fourth-generation Japanese American, born and raised in what from a distance now seems like a mecca of multiculturalism in LA, confronted with stark black-and-white racial dynamics and a desire to connect with Asian American community when I moved to Philadelphia two decades ago.

At the time, I was a college student wishing to be a community organizer, but without the language skills to be as effective as was needed within Philadelphia’s Asian American immigrant communities. Fortunately, as part of my organizing on my liberal arts school campus and advocating for Asian American studies, I was able to attend a conference where I saw actor Lane Nishikawa performing excerpts of his one-man show I’m on a Mission from Buddha—including the scene with his “Uncle Blackie” talking with his friends from the US’s highly decorated, segregated 442nd army unit, buried at Punchbowl Cemetery after serving during WWII (while their loyalty to their country was being questioned and fellow Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps). It was a lunchtime crowd, with catered food service and chatter competing for attention, but by the time the lights came up at the end of the show, the majority of the audience had been moved enough by the performance that they had ceased to eat and were sitting in rapt silence— some in tears—instead.

I was inspired to believe in the power of the arts to mobilize people and sway emotions and opinions and build community in ways that petitions and protests couldn’t. And to bring Lane to perform on my college campus, which led me to “discover” the Painted Bride Art Center, which was planning to present him as part of an Asian Arts Initiative they were starting in Philadelphia in response to concerns about racial tensions in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King verdict and the LA uprisings. (I’m just realizing that like me, while based in Philadelphia, Asian Arts Initiative also has a connection to Los Angeles.) I decided that I could use my skills to pro-actively organize through and for the arts, and became an intern at the Painted Bride and have been with Asian Arts Initiative since then as it has grown into an independent multi-disciplinary community arts center.

Fast forward to 2005, when I was fortunate to be attending the National Performance Network’s annual meeting where a handful of Asian American organizational leaders were gathered to plan for the first National Asian American Theater Conference, “The Big Bang,” hosted by East West Players and TeAda Productions in Los Angeles in 2006. Then, as well as during the first National Asian American Theater Festival in New York in 2007, I was thrilled to be connected with Asian American peers from around the country—sadly, still a rare enough opportunity, even for people living in places with larger Asian American populations than Philadelphia—and to be part of building a field that is expanding the notions of how “theater” is defined.

In addition to the obvious Asian American presence, I am particularly proud of how CAATA (the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists, as the almost all-volunteer group that produces the conferences, festivals, or ConFest has named itself) has been inclusive of artists creating work in a variety of ways—playwrights, directors, actors as well as devised theater-makers—and based in a range of disciplines—spoken word poets, movement-based artists, and musicians—ages, genders, ethnicities, and geographies. And now, in 2014, I am pleased to welcome the ConFest to Philadelphia, where the community of theater-makers (whether they are recognized as part of the “theater community” or not) is probably as diverse as CAATA.

Among the many highlights, I am looking forward to Chang(e), inspired by the life as well as the death of artist and activist Kathy Chang, which will be especially resonant in Philadelphia, where she was an icon, performing regularly on the steps of the Art Museum and on the University of Pennsylvania campus until setting herself on fire in a final act of protest. The piece, co-commissioned by Asian Arts Initiative and developed in residence at HERE Art Center, is Soomi Kim’s third in a trilogy about Asian Americans who have died too young; in the first piece in her trilogy (presented at the first National Asian American Theater Festival in New York), she played Bruce Lee; and her second piece (presented at the most recent ConFest in LA) was dedicated to the writer Teresa Hak Kyung Cha.

Another production that Asian Arts Initiative will be presenting as part of the Festival is Tree City Legends, a modern parable about urban immigrant experience by spoken word artist and musician turned first-time playwright Dennis Kim. Asian Arts Initiative’s relationship with Dennis dates back to the days when he was touring with the spoken word quartet that he co-founded, I Was Born With Two Tongues, and which has had a singular impact in shaping the Asian Pacific Islander American spoken word movement today. The inclusion of his piece, co-presented by Youth Speaks, is a nod to the inclusivity of genres and generations that CAATA represents.

We are also fortunate to be partnering with Andrea Assaf of Art2Action engaging an ad hoc ensemble of invited ConFest participants—including Kat Evasco, Justin Jain, Bi Ngo, Viet Nguyen, kt shorb, Anu Yadav—in a devised theater project that we intend to help frame the theme/s of the ConFest, foment discussion, and synthesize feedback to shape the future of Asian American theater.

We hope that you’ll join us in this process too.

 

 

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Thoughts from the curators

A series that explores various Asian American artists' perspectives on the field-at-large and specifically the 2014 National Asian American Theatre Conference and Festival theme of "Home: Here? There? Where?"

Asian American Theatre

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