"The Eye of Compassion" excerpts from Lenora Lee on Vimeo.

A beautiful article by John Wilkins of KQED on “The Eye of Compassion”

A nice write up in the Examiner by Leslie Katz! 

Nice plug on Hoodline for “The Eye of Compassion” by Nathan Falstreau

Asian Improv aRts, API Cultural Center, Chinese Historical Society of America, & Donaldina Cameron House present

The World Premiere of “The Eye of Compassion”
A new multimedia immersive dance experience by Lenora Lee Dance

Saturdays, 9/24 & 10/1 – 7:30pm & 9pm
Sundays, 9/25 & 10/2 – 7:30pm 
Performances will begin on time, please arrive early.

Donaldina Cameron House
920 Sacramento St (between Powell & Stockton), SF, CA 94108
Parking available at the Portsmouth Square Plaza Garage. There will not be parking available at Cameron House.

Arts Patron: $35 in advance online, includes 6:45-7:15pm pre-performance reception (for 7:30pm show), and 10-10:30pm post-performance reception (for 9pm show)
General Admission: $20 in advance online. $25 at the door
Student rate: $15 in advance online. $20 at the door – Valid student ID required
Group rate available – while tickets last

Due to the intimate nature of the performance, there are a very limited number of tickets available per show. To ensure your space, purchase your tickets today.

Click Here for Tickets
For more info: www.LenoraLeeDance.com, email: LenoraLeeDance@gmail.com, 415-816-9376

 

Lenora Lee Dance (LLD) celebrates its 9th Anniversary Season with the World Premiere of The Eye of Compassion, a new site-specific multimedia immersive dance experience premiering in a two-week run 9/24 – 10/2/16 in San Francisco’s historic Donaldina Cameron House (CH). This work for six dancers will integrate contemporary dance, video projection, original music, and will serve as a meditation on healing, resilience, compassion and transformation, inspired by the work done at Cameron House over the years. It will feature a collage of vignettes, stories about, and interviews of people previously served in its programs, and also speak to the power of individuals and communities to transcend.

Audiences will travel through a labyrinth of rooms throughout the historic five story building in an intimate interactive environment, a tapestry of movement, sound and visual collage throughout the inside and outside of the building.

LLD’s work integrates contemporary dance, film, music, and research and has gained increasing attention for its sustained pursuit of issues related to immigration, global conflict, and its impacts, particularly on women and families.

“We strive to generate artistic work that engages deeply the connections between individuals and their experiences, and community and collective memory, through creative processes, research, and public involvement.” – Lenora Lee

“What struck me most was how Lee managed to embed the narrative into the installation’s structure. So many different things were happening all at once and no one could predict what was going to occur, or when, or where… it shows how carefully Lee wove the narrative into everyone’s experience, including the viewer’s.” – Heather Desaulniers, Dance Commentary, 9/13/15

 

Conceived & directed by Lenora Lee
Choreography by Lenora Lee with performers Peter Cheng, Yao Dang, Christian Felix, Yi-Ting Hsu, SanSan Kwan, Chloe Luo
Music score by Francis Wong, Tatsu Aoki, Melody Takata, Kioto Aoki, Jonathan Chen, Ari Brown
Media Design by Lenora Lee
Cinematography directed by Tatsu Aoki and Lenora Lee,
          filmed by Ben Estabrook, Eric Koziol, Lenora Lee, Joel Wanek
Edited by Olivia Ting, Tatsu Aoki, Eric Koziol, and Lenora Lee

Additional artists on video: Corey Chan, James Q. Chan, Laurene Chan, Kara Davis, Kimberly Elliot, Raymond Fong, Chizuru Hamada, Karina Lee Howe, Kate Lee Howe, Chin-chin Hsu, Carl Irons, Wei-Shan Lai, Amy Lam, Lenora Lee, Yukihiko Noda, Melody Takata, Olivia Ting, Alisa Wong, Pamela Wong

Please Note:
– Comfortable footwear is encouraged.
– Coat, purse and bag check service is available and is highly recommended.
– Guests may encounter situations in close proximity with performers.
– We encourage guests with special needs to contact us prior to arrival at: LenoraLeeDance@gmail.com or (415) 816-9376

“The Eye of Compassion” is funded in part by San Francisco Arts Commission, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Portsmouth Plaza Parking Corporation, Fleishhacker Foundation, SF Grants for the Arts, Dance Mission Theater and by Generous Individuals. Special thanks to our Arts Patron Sponsor DAE Advertising and to our Community Circle Partners Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach and OCA, San Mateo.

To find out how you can support this project, click here

 

BACKGROUND

Started as the Occidental Mission Home for Girls in 1874, the initial purpose of the work done at Donaldina Cameron House (CH) was to intervene on behalf of young, Asian, immigrant females who had become vulnerable upon arrival into the United States. From its founding to the 1930’s over 2,000 women and girls sought shelter or sought refuge in Chinatown at CH from forced labor and indentured servitude.

 

 

LENORA LEE DANCE

The company is directed by San Francisco native Lenora Lee, who has been a dancer, choreographer and artistic director for the past 18 years in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. In 2013 she was an Artist Fellow at the de Young Museum, a Djerassi Resident Artist, and was a Visiting Scholar at New York University 2012-2016. She is currently an Artist in Residence at Dance Mission Theater. LLD creates works that are both set in public and private spaces, intimate and at the same time large-scale, inspired by individual stories as well as community strength. For the last nine years, LLD has been pushing the envelope of large-scale multimedia dance performance that connects various styles of movement and music to culture, history & human rights issues. Its work has grown to encompass the creation, presentation, and screening of films, museum and gallery installations, civic engagement and educational programming.

Photos by Robbie Sweeny and courtesy of Lenora Lee Dance

 

 

“The Detached” (2014), 13:01 min
by Lenora Lee and Tatsu Aoki

Screening Saturday, 7/23, 3:15pm at the Roxie Theater as part of the SF Frozen Film Festival!
Note: some films in the 3:15pm program contain adult content.

http://www.frozenfilmfestival.com/pages/lineup16.php

Conceived & Produced by Lenora Lee

Directed & Edited by Tatsu Aoki

Cinematography by Ben Estabrook, Eric Koziol, Olivia Ting, Joel Wanek

Choreography & Performance by Lenora Lee with Larissa Fong, Raymond Fong, Marina Fukushima, Chin-chin Hsu, Lynn Huang, Wei-Shan Lai, Yukihiko Noda

Music
De-Clime 2 from CD recording Jonathan Chen Orchestra Returns by Tatsu Aoki and Jonathan Chen.
DiStilled by Ari Brown, Tatsu Aoki, and Francis Wong.
Michi from CD recording Shadow to Shadow by Melody Takata and Tatsu Aoki.
Steel Toe from CD recording Actual Music by David Pavkovic and Tatsu Aoki.
Moving the Moment by Ari Brown, Tatsu Aoki, and Francis Wong.
All recordings are courtesy of Asian Improv Records.

Lighting – Harry Rubeck

Costumes – Lenora and JoAnn Lee

Painting – Corey Chan

Production Assistance – Tongjia Wang

Special thanks to Angel Island and the California State Parks

In association with production partners Lenora Lee Dance, Innocent Eyes and Lenses Films, and Asian Improv aRts

Copyright 2014 Lenora Lee Dance

“The Detached” (2014), 13:01 min
by Lenora Lee and Tatsu Aoki, in association with production partners Lenora Lee Dance, Innocent Eyes and Lenses Films, and Asian Improv aRts

Screening on Friday, 5/27, 3pm as part of the Sacramento Asian Pacific Film Festival!

Conceived & Produced by Lenora Lee

Directed & Edited by Tatsu Aoki

Cinematography by Ben Estabrook, Eric Koziol, Olivia Ting, Joel Wanek

Choreography & Performance by Lenora Lee with Larissa Fong, Raymond Fong, Marina Fukushima, Chin-chin Hsu, Lynn Huang, Wei-Shan Lai, Yukihiko Noda

Music
De-Clime 2 from CD recording Jonathan Chen Orchestra Returns by Tatsu Aoki and Jonathan Chen.
DiStilled by Ari Brown, Tatsu Aoki, and Francis Wong.
Michi from CD recording Shadow to Shadow by Melody Takata and Tatsu Aoki.
Steel Toe from CD recording Actual Music by David Pavkovic and Tatsu Aoki.
Moving the Moment by Ari Brown, Tatsu Aoki, and Francis Wong.
All recordings are courtesy of Asian Improv Records.

Lighting – Harry Rubeck

Costumes – Lenora and JoAnn Lee

Painting – Corey Chan

Production Assistance – Tongjia Wang

Special thanks to Angel Island and the California State Parks

In association with production partners Lenora Lee Dance, Innocent Eyes and Lenses Films, and Asian Improv aRts

Copyright 2014 Lenora Lee Dance

Lenora Lee Dance is pleased to present a work-in-progress excerpt as part of the ODC Take 5 Series.

Take 5
June 10, 2016 at 5:00pm
Tickets $5 | Buy Tickets at the Door

Featured artists*: Lenora Lee, Katharine Hawthorne, Christy Funsch

Be a shareholder in the creative process. See works in progress from dance artists. Discuss what you saw, what resonated, and what sparked questions. Then, exercise your share to award an artist with 15 hours of free rehearsal time.
Program Subject to Change
LOCATION

ODC Theater
Mott Studio
3153 17th Street SF CA 94110
TICKETS
Buy Tickets at the Door
Tickets $5

1 pm to 2:30 pm on Saturday May 21 and Sunday May 22, 2016 
Fort Point National Historic Site
999 Marine Dr, SF 94129, under the South Side of the Golden Gate Bridge entrance

Admission free
Please arrive early to find parking. Click here for directions.

Featuring

Lenora Lee Dance – Yao Dang, Gama Hsu, Lenora Lee, Chloe Luo

Francis Wong Unit – Karl Evangelista on guitar, John-Carlos Perea on bass & flute, Karen Stackpole on gongs & drum set, Melody Takata on taiko, Francis Wong on saxophone, Yangqin Zhao on yangqin.

Visiting artists – William Roper (Los Angeles) on tuba, Michael Jamanis on violin (from Lancaster, PA) and Amanda Kemp (Sunday only) with spoken word (also from Lancaster)

Special guests – Kei Lun Martial Arts, and Okinawan music and lion dance by Wesley Ueunten and ensemble

Remarks by historian Connie Young Yu and SFSU Asian American Studies Professor Wesley Ueunten and other guests to follow Saturday’s performance. Please click here to RSVP for this post performance discussion. Seating is very limited.

Visit www.asianimprov.org,www.parksconservancy.org/nps100, http://go.nps.gov/goga100, or email: lenora@asianimprov.org for more information.

Background

Many of us are familiar with how important World War II was in shaping our modern world and the heroism and sacrifice of what has been called “the greatest generation”. However, a lesser known story is how World War II was a  turning point for racial justice in the US. For Chinese Americans, it meant that an alliance between US and China would  finally repeal the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese from naturalization to U.S. Citizenship and restricted their immigration.

The heroic role that Japanese Americans played in WWII while their families were incarcerated in concentration camps in the US would also bring about important changes such as the repeal of the Alien Land Law barring non-citizens from purchasing land. More than the legislation, this era represented a moment that deeply empowered Asian Americans as well as other communities of color in the struggle for civil rights and racial equality.

It was the beginning of a new era of activism around issues such as the promised benefits to Filipino war veterans, to finally lifting of restrictive quotas on Asian immigration, to redress for the camps for Japanese Americans. In this spirit our intercultural collaboration of artists and organizations comes together to evoke remembrance and celebration of the sacrifices made and victories won in WWII, the defining event of our global society.

Called to Rise: Chinese Americans in CBI

Several stories from the World War II experience of Asian Americans have inspired the works to be performed at this event. One of these stories is the experience of Chinese Americans in the China Burma India (CBI) theater of the war. CBI operations were a critical part of the Allied strategy to supply the wartime Chinese government’s resistance to Japanese occupation. President Roosevelt had believed that the defense of China was key to the defense of America, making the alliance with China vital to the US war effort.

Composer Francis Wong and CHSA Historian Connie Young Yu share a connection to this historic chapter through Wong’s father George and late mother Noela Wong and Young Yu’s late father, Colonel John C. Young, a decorated U.S. Army Combat Liaison Officer (under General Joseph Stilwell) who among other duties, played a key role in the pivotal Battle of Mount Song.  Wong’s father George, a Chinese citizen at the time (as was Wong’s mother), served as a liaison with a U.S Foreign Economic Administration (FEA) team under the US State Department in Guizhou, working on transportation issues related to the Burma Road. Wong’s mother was civilian staff for the US Army transportation administration in Kunming in Yunnan Province.

A special educational mini-installation exploring this narrative produced by the Chinese Historical Society of America, Called to Rise: Chinese Americans in CBI will be on view May 6 – June 30, 2016 at the Fort Point Historic Site. The hours for the site are Friday – Sunday 10am – 5pm, Thursday – Tuesday 10am – 5pm starting end of May.

 
www.FrancisWong.net 
www.LenoraLeeDance.com
www.asianimprov.org