2022 into 2023!

Dear Friends and Supporters,

With love, creativity, compassion, and gratitude we greet you today, and hope that 2022 has been a year full of good health, recuperation, and clarity for you and your loved ones. With the flood of over 10 projects we have had the honor to work on this year, we are in the midst of working on four of them, and excited to share a recap. Many of these projects had been on hold due to the pandemic, and we are extremely grateful to return to in-person performances this year for many of them! 

• Premiere of Convergent Waves: Boston in April 2022 at Pao Arts Center, Boston, inspired by the fight for affordable housing in Boston’s Chinatown
• Premiere of In the Shape of Their Presence by SanSan Kwan & Lenora Lee in May, Joe Goode Annex, in loving memory of Kenneth Speirs & Karina Lee Howe, as part of Dance Lovers 10
• Special preview virtual screening of the Within These Walls film final cuts in May, presented by ArtsEmerson and Boston Asian American Film Festival
• Premiere of Convergent Waves: SF in June at Asian Art Museum, focusing on experiences of residents and advocates in SF’s Tenderloin, challenges of the pandemic, and the housing crisis
• Co-presentation of Expansions // Horizons a celebration of music, dance, and film for Asian Improv aRts’ 35th Anniversary, advancing artists, activism, and culture on a national level with multiple generations of AIR artists in June at Asian Art Museum
• Premiere of In the Movement in September at ODC Theater, highlighting experiences of migration, prison to ICE detention pipeline, and organizing to stop the pipeline and deportations.
• Screenings of Convergent Waves: Boston at Boston Asian American Film Festival, and virtually through ArtsEmerson’s Projecting Connections: Chinese American Experiences Series Oct-Nov

2023 is our 15th Anniversary Season!!

• LLD will screen the And the Community Will Rise film, focusing on the advocacy for Ping Yuen housing tenants’ rights, by residents and Chinatown Community Development Center staff.
• We will screen the final version of our Within These Walls film by filmmaker Tatsu Aoki, inspired by those detained at the U.S. Immigration Station on Angel Island.
• U.C. Berkeley’s Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies Department invited LLD to re-stage our Within These Walls performance on Cal students, February 23-26 at Zellerbach Playhouse
• Premiere of In Visibility fall 2023, a companion piece to In the Movement, focusing on mass detention of immigrants and refugees as a form of incarceration.
• Creation phase of Convergent Waves: NYC, a dance centered on the Asian American, Black, and Latinx intersection, community building and solidarity in NYC. 

Your support is critical during this time 

The increase in the cost of living and reduced audience capacity has made for a particularly hard year for the Arts. In an increasingly segregated society, artists hold a key to building bridges and creating the foundation for transformation. It is appreciation of diversity, and uplifting voices of collaboration that will bring our society together, allow us to dissolve barriers of discrimination, and witness our collective abilities to grow and unify.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

We immensely appreciate your generosity and invite you to contribute today! 

Your gift will directly support our collaborating artists, designers, filmmakers, performances, films, interviews, and discussions. With the intensity and productivity of this year, and the myriad of adjustments we’ve all had to make in our lives due to the pandemic, we are ever so grateful for your continued support. Wishing you grace, compassion, and love,

Lenora Lee, Artistic Director      

Lucy Tafler, Project Consultant

Sawako Ogo, Marketing Consultant