Interdisciplinary dance works giving artistic voice to Asian Americans

LLD performs during Night Watch at Fort Mason, 9/17/2021

YiTing (Gama) Hsu & Hien Huynh photo by Robbie Sweeny

LLD Performs as part of Night Watch events this Friday, 9/17, 6:30pm inside the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason!

 
Shimon Attie’s Night Watch is a co-production between BOXBLUR and Immersive Arts Alliance, with events curated by Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco Dance Film Festival, and Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture
 
YiTing (Gama) Hsu & Hien Huynh of Lenora Lee Dance will perform excerpts of our award-winning “Within These Walls” INSIDE the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason this Friday, 9/17, 6:30pm!
 
We will begin in front of Cowell Theater and continue the performance inside the theater. Immediately following will be a screening of Dancers Without Borders, a program of short dance films that highlight stories of immigration. This indoor programming is co-presented by San Francisco Dance Film Festival and Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture’s Cowell Theater in collaboration with Catharine Clark Gallery.
 
Vaccination proof required for those viewing the performance, film screenings, and music indoors. 
 
Eventbrite Link to Night Watch: Click Here
Cowell Theater/Fort Mason Address: 2 Marina Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94123
 
“Within These Walls” (2017) was originally staged and performed by a cast of 14 at the U.S. Immigration Station, Angel Island State Park in 2017 and 2019. The piece is inspired by the experiences of those detained, interrogated, and processed there.
 
Conceived, Produced & Directed by Lenora Lee
Created in collaboration with dance artists / performers Yi-Ting (Gama) Hsu & Hien Huynh
Music Score by Francis Wong and Tatsu Aoki, with Deszon X. Claiborne, Edward Wilkerson Jr., Michael Zerang
Poetry & Text by Genny Lim and Wong Gung Jue
Media Design & Editing by Olivia Ting
 
This event accompanies Shimon Attie’s Night Watch, a video portrait of refugees granted asylum in the U.S., which will be visible on a floating barge from Fort Mason. Co-Produced by BOXBLUR and Immersive Arts Alliance
 
Schedule
5 – 6:45pm | Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture presents their Fall Arts Preview Party with artwork across the campus. (Food trucks on-site at Fort Mason)
6:30 – 7:15pm | Night Watch viewing of the barge from Pier 2 at Fort Mason.
6:30 – 9:00 pm | Cowell Theater: (400+ seat theater)
Dancers Without Borders Film Screening – SF Dance Film Festival, Lenora Lee Dance performance, Classical Revolution, and a screening of Shimon Attie’s video, The View From Below. Tabling by non-profit organizations providing services to refugees and immigrants. Pre-registration for seats at the Cowell Theater is required.
 
**Night Watch will be visible at Fort Mason from 6:30–7:15pm, where programming will include music, dance, film, art, and partners organizations. Night Watch will then continue along the shoreline and will be viewable from Pier 15, adjacent to the Exploratorium, and then it will travel to Rincon Park where it will to stop at the shoreline in front of EPIC Steak / Waterbar Restaurant (7:45pm – 8:15pm) for programmed music by Classical Revolution.
 
More information about Night Watch
“BOXBLUR and Immersive Arts Alliance are pleased to announce the co-production of Shimon Attie’s Night Watch, a floating media installation that will travel the San Francisco Bay from September 17- 19, 2021. Night Watch features video portraits on a 20ft-wide, hi-resolution LED screen which will travel along the Bay aboard a large, slow-moving barge to allow for on-shore public viewing. Displayed on the screen are silent, close-up video portraits of twelve refugees who were granted political asylum in the United States.
 
Night Watch will activate and animate the San Francisco Bay as both a literal and metaphoric site and landscape for escape, rescue, safe-passage, and the offering of safe-harbor for those most vulnerable. The artwork engages one of the most urgent issues of our time – that of welcoming or closing our doors to asylum seekers.”
 
Night Watch was originally presented by MoreArt.org in 2018. The project was met with critical success and covered in the New York Times and was further reviewed by myriad other publications and television news outlets. 


 

 

YiTing (Gama) Hsu & Hien Huynh photo by Robbie Sweeny

 

 

August 27, 2021 | Categories: Community Events, Latest Updates | Leave A Comment »

Saint Joseph’s Arts Foundation: Art and Social Justice

Saint Joseph’s Arts Foundation (ticketed)

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  • Saint Joseph’s Art Society1401 Howard StreetSan Francisco, CA, 94103United States (map)

Evening | Speaker presentation for Shimon Attie’s Night Watch, featuring panelists in conversation about the role of art as an amplifier for social justice issues.  Pre-registration required. This event is open to the public, but with limited admittance! Address: 1401 Howard Street, San Francisco

St. Joseph’s Art Society is a supporter of and contributor to the SF premiere of Night Watch.

Panelists at this event:

Charith Premawardhana, Classical Revolution https://www.classicalrevolution.org/

Ana Teresa Fernandez, artist https://anateresafernandez.com/

Lenora Lee, Lenora Lee Dance http://www.lenoraleedance.com/

Judy Flannery (or) Randall Heath from Dance Film SF https://sfdancefilmfest.org/

Clark Suprynowicz (Immersive Arts Alliance)

Moderator, Catharine Clark (BOXBLUR)

Photograph of St. Joseph’s Art Society by Elizabeth Pianta.

August 27, 2021 | Categories: Community Events, Latest Updates | Leave A Comment »

CALL FOR BOSTON DANCERS – 2021 – 2022!

 

 

 

CALL FOR BOSTON 

DANCERS – 2021 – 2022!

Lenora Lee Dance (LLD), based in San Francisco, is seeking Boston based Male Asian/Asian American modern / contemporary dancers for “Convergent Waves” a series of 6 site-specific, immersive, multimedia performances in Boston in and around Pao Arts Center, April 21-24, 2022, with the possibility of touring in San Francisco June 1 – 9, 2022, Los Angeles and NYC in 2023.

LLD is looking for dancers with experience in choreography, improvisation, and collaboration. Rehearsals will begin in Boston January 2022, occurring one week per month almost every month, for approximately 20 hours each time through April 2022 shows. Below is a tentative draft of the schedule. All rehearsal and performance time is paid.

Those interested can email LenoraLeeDance@gmail.com 

  • your cell phone number, 
  • a resume, 
  • your website, and 
  • up to four video links of dance pieces you have choreographed or are featured dancing in by August 21, 2021

Video call backs / Auditions will be in September 2021.

Call (‪415) 913-8725‬ for more information.

www.LenoraLeeDance.com

 

Potential Rehearsal & Performance Dates:

  • Rehearsals, approximately one week per month in January, February and March
  • April 8 – 20 – Rehearsals, Tech and Dress Rehearsals
  • April 21 – 24, 2022 – Boston premiere
  • May 31 – June 9, 2022 – San Francisco Rehearsals
  • June 9 2022 – tour – San Francisco Performance (Asian Art Museum)
  • Spring 2023 – LA tour
  • Fall 2023 – NYC tour

 

 

Background

“Convergent Waves” is a site-responsive, immersive, multimedia experience premiering in and around Pao Arts Center (Pao) in Boston April 21-24, 2022, with potential touring June 2022 – November 2023. LLD will transform Pao into an immersive site where the audience follows performers on an interactive journey that will feature 6 dancers, multimedia design, recorded original music, research, and voiceover interviews with activists and residents. 

 

Audiences are reoriented for a unique perspective that merges memory, contemporary reality, and social commentary. Walking through the building will be like walking through the interior of someone’s body with the idea of memory housed in the architectural blueprint of the building. 

 

Pao sits on a historically significant piece of land, Parcel 24, where hundreds of residents were displaced in the 1960s in order to build a highway on-ramp. The reclamation of this land by Pao represents a powerful call for community oriented development in the face of rapid change. The work, which celebrates the contributions of activists and non-profit leaders, will make a collective statement for the preservation of community as neighborhoods across the country inhabited for generations face displacement through gentrification. 

 

Supported in part by Pao Arts Center, National Endowment for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project and Expeditions Tour Planning Grant, ArtsEmerson and Generous Individuals. San Francisco performances supported in part by California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, and San Francisco Grants for the Arts

 

About the Company

For the last 13 years Lenora Lee Dance (LLD) has been pushing the envelope of intimate and large-scale multimedia dance performance that connects various styles of movement/dance, film, text, research and music to culture, history, and human rights issues. LLD creates works that are both set in public and private spaces, inspired by individual stories as well as community strength. At times crafted for the proscenium, or underwater, or in the air, and at times the pieces are site-responsive, immersive and interactive. Its work has grown to encompass the creation, presentation and screening of films, museum and gallery installations, civic engagement, and educational programming. 

 

LLD is directed by San Francisco native Lenora Lee, who has been a dancer, choreographer and artistic director for the past 23. She has been an Artist Fellow at the de Young Museum, a Djerassi Resident Artist, a Visiting Scholar at New York University, an Artist in Residence at Dance Mission, a 2019 United States Artists Fellow, and is currently an Artist in Residence at Pao Arts Center and ArtsEmerson.

 

Lenora Lee Dance creates multimedia and immersive dance performances connecting various styles of movement, music, and film to culture, history and human rights issues. www.LenoraLeeDance.com

 

 

dancers in photo: Johnny Nguyen, I.J. Chan, Naoko Brown, Flora Hyoin Kim 

 

 

 

August 8, 2021 | Categories: Community Events, Latest Updates | Leave A Comment »

SF’s Chinatown Block Party Aims to Bring Community Together

 

Performance of “And the Community Will Rise” excerpts 

as part of the “Ping Yuen-Peaceful Garden Summer Block Party”

 
Saturday, 7/17, 12:20pm
In front of 795 Pacific Street, (between Stockton & Grant), San Francisco
 
Lenora Lee Dance is thrilled to be participating in the “Ping Yuen-Peaceful Garden Summer Block Party”, an event promoting unity and solidarity within our communities, with an emphasis on our Black and Asian community.
 
The day’s events will take place from 11am – 3pm.
 
Chinatown Community Development Center celebrates the rainbow of cultures within the Ping Yuen Properties as well as provide a day of enrichment, showcasing cultural dancing, food, spoken word, performances, games, inviting pillars of the community such as Norman Fong, Mayor London Breed, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, UNITED PLAYAZ, Community Youth Center and the Street Violence Intervention Program. “Say it Loud, I’m Ping Yuen and I’m Proud,” embodies the spirit of what the “Peaceful Garden Summer Block Party” will emit into the Ping Yuen residents, Pride in Togetherness, Solidarity and Peace within our communities.
 

click here for the full SF Chronicle article 
click here for the full NBC article 
 
LLD is in the process of creating a dance film of “And the Community Will Rise”and will perform excerpts this Saturday, 7/17, 12:20pm.
 
This work explores Chinatown residents’ struggle for affordable housing and fighting for their rights as tenants and recent immigrants as well as the complexities of the multi-ethnic backgrounds of the tenants in the Ping Yuen complex. Timing is crucial as SF is witnessing growing displacement of its low-income residents, as neighborhoods inhabited for decades by generations of communities of color are facing gentrification and displacement.
 
Conceived, produced, directed by Lenora Lee
 
Choreography by Lenora Lee in collaboration with dance artists / performers Clarissa Dyas, Anna Greenberg Gold, Lynn Huang, Amber Julian, Melissa Lewis, Megan Lowe, and Johnny Nguyen
 

Music directed by saxophonist Francis Wong, with rapper AK Black, guitarist Karl Evangelista, vocalist Helen Palma, percussionist Deszon X. Claiborne, Courtesy of Asian Improv Records. Additional vocals by Amber Julian.

 
Interviewees featured in the soundscore include: Norman Fong, former Mayor Ed Lee, Debra Brown, Sophia, Myrisha Mixon, Benson Toy.
 
And The Community Will Rise is supported by Chinatown Community Development Center, Asian Improv aRts, API Cultural Center. It is made possible in part by a grant from The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund that also is supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a Kenneth Rainin Foundation Open Spaces Program grant, California Arts Council Creative California Communities grant, by Zellerbach Family Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, and by Generous Individuals
 
 

July 20, 2021 | Categories: Community Events, Latest Updates | Leave A Comment »

Lenora Lee Dance featured in DREAM magazine!

 
 
DREAM is California’s newest arts and culture magazine, published by the California Arts Council.
 
The annual publication features voices and stories from across the state, sharing a glimpse into the depth of impact of creativity and cultural expression in a region as large and diverse as California.
 
 
Summer 2021
The premier issue of DREAM magazine explores what it means to dream, introducing artists and culture bearers from communities throughout the state.
 
Dive Into DREAM
Click here to view the current issue online.
 
Cover Photo by Kate Fim
Dancers: Hien Huynh & Johnny Nguyễn
Photos within Magazine by Robbie Sweeny

July 20, 2021 | Categories: Latest Updates | Leave A Comment »

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