Interdisciplinary dance works giving artistic voice to Asian Americans

SingTao Daily article about the Chinatown Music Festival!

8/24/12 SingTao Daily article on the Chinatown Music Festival.  Photo features festival producer and creative director of Asian Improv aRts – saxophonist/composer Francis Wong with dancer/choreographer Lenora Lee.

 

Lenora Lee Dance performs 10/31 – 11/4 at the WHITE WAVE John Ryan Theater in New York!

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Lenora Lee Dance celebrates its 5th Anniversary Season in New York as part of  WHITE WAVE and WAVE RISING SERIES  – Program F.

PROGRAM F DESCRIPTION
Lenora Lee Dance (CA) “The Escape”
MADboots dance co. (NJ) “ALL GOOD SONS”
Jennifer Mellor Dance Project (NY) “Love/Lost”
SunHeon Dance Company (Korea) “Into the Korea”

Wednesday, October 31st, 7:30pm (preview excerpt)

Friday & Sunday, November 2nd & 4th, 7:30pm

Saturday, November 3rd, 4pm

WHITE WAVE John Ryan Theater, 25 Jay St, Suite 100, Brooklyn, NY  11201

Info: www.whitewavedance.com, or email Lenora@asianimprov.org

Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/262153

The Escape  by Lenora Lee Dance with Kei Lun Martial Arts & Enshin Karate, South San Francisco Dojo, featuring media design by Olivia Ting, music by Francis Wong, and videography directed by Tatsu Aoki / shot by Ben Estabrook & Eric Koziol.

The piece is inspired by stories of women who had become vulnerable upon arrival into the U.S. during the early 20th Century. The project seeks to shed light on the experiences of these women in the context of the social history of the period for Chinese in America as well as for women in the society as a whole with the struggles and achievements of the 20th Century Women’s Movement, which took on such issues as child labor and human trafficking.

This work is being developed through the support of Asian Improv aRts, API Cultural Center, Chinese Historical Society of America Museum, Cameron House, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, Asian Women’s Shelter, Asian Anti-Trafficking Collaborative, and the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women. The Escape is part of a larger commissioned work to be performed at the de Young Museum as part of their 2013 Artist Fellows program.

Also supported by Zellerbach Family Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council, Grants For the Arts/SF Hotel Tax Fund, WKK Donor-Advised Fund, San Francisco Foundation, and Individual Donors.

Photo by Robbie Sweeny

3rd Annual Chinatown Music Festival Saturday, 8/25!

The Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco presents

The 3rd Annual Chinatown Music Festival: America’s Cup of Tea

Saturday, August 25th, 2012, 11:00am – 5:00pm

Admission is FREE to the public

Musicians Jon Jang and Francis Wong, photo by J. Astra Brinkmann

Please join us for the 3rd Annual Chinatown Music Festival: America’s Cup of Tea, on Saturday, August 25, 2012 in Portsmouth Square from 11 am – 5 pm. Under the theme of Chinatown, Our Home, the Festival will feature the premiere of a newly commissioned work by pianist/composer Jon Jang celebrating the contributions of Chinese workers to the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad, the Latin jazz of the John Calloway Quintet, traditional Chinese cultural arts from the Yellow River Drummers and Kei Lun Martial Arts, and the perennial rhythm and blues favorite Jest Jammin’. Collaborating in the presentation of the event are these organizations: Chinatown Community Development Center, Chinese Progressive Association, Asian Improv aRts, and the API Cultural Center.

The new work by Jon Jang, entitled Central Pacific, Central Subway,will be the opening of a yearlong temporary art project by CCC entitled Journey to Chinatown, supported by the San Francisco Arts Commission Central Subway Art Project. In the composer’s words, “Just as historical political leaders Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Sun Yat-sen shared a vision of the railroad as an important way to unify their respective countries, United States and China, the Central Subway will help unify San Francisco and enhance Chinatown’s role as a cultural destination for all San Franciscans.

Also featured will be tea tasting, crafts, games, film screenings, cultural demonstrations, and the final opportunity to view the acclaimed 2012 Xian Rui exhibition of Adrian Wong’s work Orange Peel, Harbor Seal, Hyperreal in the CCC Gallery.

The Festival is thankful for the generous support of Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Neighborhood Arts Collaborative, San Francisco Arts Commission, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, Recology, Verizon, Portsmouth Square Parking Garage Foundation. The media sponsor for this year’s festival is the Sing Tao Daily.

 

Jest Jammin’

Performance Schedule

11-11:30am                   Yellow River Drummers

11:30-11:45am                      Opening Ceremony

11:45-12:15pm                         Jon Jang Quartet

12:30-1:45pm                                 Jest Jammin’

2:10-2:45pm                           Jon Jang Quartet

3:00-4:00pm                 John Calloway Quintet

4:15-4:45pm                      Kei Lun Martial Arts

 

Portsmouth Square (across the bridge from the Chinese Culture Center 3rd Floor

Entrance on Kearny Street between Clay and Washington), San Francisco, CA 94108

Chinese Culture Center
750 Kearny Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco 94108

More information – Call (415) 986-1822 or email info@c-c-c.org

www.c-c-c.org

www.chinatowncommunitydevelopmentcenter.org/

www.cpasf.org

www.asianimprov.org

www.apiculturalcenter.org

“Reflections” short film premieres 8/25 at the Chinatown Music Festival!

The “Reflections” short film was selected for the Chinese Culture Center (CCC) collaboration with the Fei Contemporary Art Center Video Project.  The U.S. premiere screening will be at the Chinatown Music Festival on Saturday, August 25 in the CCC gallery (750 Kearny Street at Clay, 3rd Floor, SF, CA 94108)! The selected U.S. videos will also run in a loop with other international videos for Chinese Culture Center upcoming show, Women, opening Sept 15-Nov 30.

The selected videos are currently playing in Shanghai at the Fei Contemporary Art Center and in Taipei at the Bamboo Curtain Studio. The current videos on view at the Chinese Culture Center are available at the CCC website.

Produced by Lenora Lee and Olivia Ting
REFLECTIONS
Video 8:51
2012

REFLECTIONS addresses the struggle for dominance and survival.
Traditionally, Chinese lion dances at festivals bring good luck and drive away misfortune. However, in this short film, the lions represent dual roles of heroism and inner demons for a man coming to terms with his identity in a land that may never embrace him. The lion mask for him embodies a false sense of defiance, of power. Ultimately, when the mask is stripped of its outer skin, he is left unadorned to face his truths.
This is a film inspired by a larger interdisciplinary dance theater work of the same name that premiered in San Francisco September 2011 and in New York October 2011. Performed by Lenora Lee Dance with Kei Lun Martial Arts & Enshin Karate, South San Francisco Dojo. Featuring media design and editing by Olivia Ting, music by Francis Wong, text by Genny Lim, Olivia Ting, Lenora Lee, and videography by Ben Estabrook.