(Back Row) Wayne Tai Lee, Lynn Huang, Johnny Nguyen, Gama Hsu, Q. Quan, Lenora Lee,

(Front Row) Amber Julian, SanSan Kwan, Melissa Lewis, Jacinta Wu, Ethan, Elsie & Edward Kaikea Goo, Hien Huynh by Robbie Sweeny

Dear Community,

• LLD worked with Chinatown Community Development Center to perform excerpts and complete the filming of And the Community Will Rise, inspired by the fight for tenants’ rights by current and former residents of Ping Yuen housing complex. We shared in the “Peaceful Garden Summer Block Party”, promoting unity and solidarity within our communities, with an emphasis on our Black and Asian communities.
• LLD traveled to Boston to create and screen the short film Meditations on the Power of Community illuminating stories of their Chinatown community alongside Shen Wei’s paintings.
• Online presentations, convenings, podcasts, small performances, and articles rounded out our 2021. See www.LenoraLeeDance.com for film and video of these presentations.

Going forward into our 14th Season

Moving into a full 2022, we seek opportunities to screen our film And the Community Will Rise, continue to work in Boston to premiere Convergent Waves: Boston at Pao Arts Center April 21-24, 2022, celebrating the contributions of activists and non-profit leaders in the fight for affordable housing, eliciting stories of community agency and resilience.

On June 9, 2022, LLD will premiere Convergent Waves: SF at the Asian Art Museum, featuring dancers from Boston & SF. We will finalize and screen our Within These Walls film by filmmaker Tatsu Aoki, inspired by those detained and interrogated at the U.S. Immigration Station on Angel Island.

In September 1st -11th, 2022, LLD will premiere In the Movement in SF, focusing on separation of families, deportation, and mass detention of immigrants as a form of incarceration.

Your support is critical during this time of recovery

Contemporary segregation exists along color, class, geographic, economic, and material lines. We need to clear the divide, the fear of indifference, and the resistance to change with risk-taking vulnerability. It is appreciation of diversity, and power in uplifting voices of collaboration into leadership roles that will bring facets of American society together, allow us to dissolve barriers of discrimination & control, and bear witness to our collective abilities to grow, unify, and transform. 

We deeply appreciate your generosity and invite you to make a contribution today! 

Your gift will directly support the above programs: performances, tours, film screenings, interviews and discussions. With the intensity of this year, and the myriad of adjustments we’ve all had to make in our lives, we are ever so grateful for your continued support. Wishing you grace and love,

Lenora Lee      Hien Huynh    Lucy Tafler

Artistic Director Marketing & Outreach Project Consultant

We are grateful for the support of ArtsEmerson, Asian Art Museum, Asian Improv aRts, Asian Improv aRts Midwest, API Cultural Center, Boston Asian American Film Festival, California Arts Council, Cal Humanities, Chinatown Community Development Center, Fleishhacker Foundation, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, Pao Arts Center, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, SF Arts Commission, SF Grants for the Arts, The Creative Work Fund a program of Walter and Elise Haas Fund also supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and you.

Photo Credits: SanSan Kwan, Lynn Huang, Lenora Lee, Johnny Nguyen, Hien Huynh, Chloe Luo, Gama Hsu, Amber Julian, Megan Lowe, Clarissa Dyas, Melissa Lewis, Jacinta Wu, Edward Kaikea Goo, Wayne Tai Lee

Photos by Robbie Sweeny 

CALL FOR ASIAN MALE & LATINX DANCERS!

Lenora Lee Dance (LLD), based in San Francisco, is seeking Asian/Asian American male and Latinx dancers for performances in Spring and Fall 2022. 

LLD is looking for dancers with experience in choreography, improvisation, collaboration, modern / contemporary dance, and or other dance styles, for the following two projects in 2022.

“Convergent Waves” in Boston April 21-24, 2022 & SF June 9, 2022

“Convergent Waves” will be a series of 6 site-specific, multimedia performances in Boston in and around Pao Arts Center, April 21-24, 2022, and in San Francisco June 9, 2022 at the Asian Art Museum, with the possibility of touring Los Angeles and NYC in 2023. This opportunity is for Asian/Asian American male dancers.

Rehearsals will begin in SF & Boston January 2022, with Boston rehearsals occurring one week per month almost every month, for approximately 20 hours each time through April 2022 shows. All flights, lodging, rehearsal and performance time is paid.

This work celebrates the contributions of residents, activists and non-profit leaders towards the preservation of community, as neighborhoods across the country inhabited for generations face displacement through gentrification.

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“In the Movement” in San Francisco – September or October 2022

“In the Movement” will be a new multimedia dance project: 6 in person and virtual performances with community dialogues September or October 2022. Comment end It will focus on the separation of families and mass detention of immigrants as a form of incarceration, and will serve as a meditation on reconciliation and restorative justice, speaking to the power of individuals and communities to transcend. This opportunity is for Asian/Asian American male & Latinx dancers.

We’re looking at rehearsals in SF twice per week starting in May, with 2 weeks of performances somewhere in the 9/1 – 10/9/22 time frame, depending on everyone’s availability. Preference is for 9/1 – 9/11/22, but is TBD. All rehearsal and performance time is paid.

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Those interested in either opportunity can email LenoraLeeDance@gmail.com 

• your contact number, 
• a resume, 
• your website or social media handle
• up to four video links of dance pieces you have choreographed or are featured dancing in by Monday, October 18, 2021

Video call backs / Auditions will be between October 25 – November 4, 2021, with notifications sent by November 12, 2021.

Call (‪415) 913-8725‬ for more information.

http://www.lenoraleedance.com

Image credits: Hien Huynh & Johnny Nguyen by Kate Fim 

Image credits: Macio Payomo, Johnny Nguyen, SanSan Kwan & YiTing (Gama) Hsu by Kate Fim

These projects are 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, California Arts Council, Cal Humanities, San Francisco Arts Commission, and San Francisco Grants for the Arts and Generous Individuals.

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, 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