Mu Performing Arts and Pangea World Theater Host the 2nd National Asian American Theater Conference: Shaping Our Voice + Vision June 5 to 7, 2008
(Minneapolis/St. Paul) Award-winning Twin Cities companies Mu Performing Arts and Pangea World Theater will host The 2nd National Asian American Theater Conference: Shaping Our Voice + Vision, a three-day event featuring symposiums, performances, workshops, and breakout sessions by some of the nation's preeminent Asian American theater artists. The bulk of the conference will take place at the Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis, with performances taking place at Mixed Blood Theatre. The conference runs June 5-7, 2008.
Plenary panelists include Tony Award-winner David Henry Hwang (author of The Dance and the Railroad and the Pulitzer Prize-nominated M. Butterfly); playwright and Obie Award-winning director Chay Yew, whose accomplishments include founding and directing the former Asian Theatre Workshop at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; and emerging playwright Julia Cho (BFE), whose work has been produced at Playwrights Horizons, South Coast Repertory, and The Public Theatre.
Breakout session facilitators include renowned South Asian choreographer Urmika Devi, webmaster for the Asian American Theater Revue, Roger Tang and anthropologist Uzma Z. Rizvi on topics as varied as globalization, establishing new forms of Americana and Asian American comedy. Other exciting topics are addressed by a bevy of Asian American theater artists, administrators, playwrights, and performers.
Ten-minute play excerpts will be presented by eight playwrights, including local playwright May Lee (Anatomy of a Hmong Girl) and Philadelphia based spoken word-artist Regie Cabico’s Neo-Futurists.
“To host a national Asian American theater conference here in Minnesota is a historic event because it reflects both the enormous growth of Asian American theater locally and the national reach of Asian American theater in general. Asian American theater is not just about the work being done New York and California, but about work and artists being developed around the country.”
Rick Shiomi, Artistic Director
Mu Performing Arts
“The changing demographics of the country demands that we create a new nomenclature that is inclusive of voices that represent a true North America. In our current times of blurring color-lines and new immigrant communities contributing to the mix that is the United States, the re-articulation of aesthetics with the influx of new forms born from the present generation of Asian Americans will serve to redefine and vitalize theater. As we continue this movement of Asian American theater, this conference will help shape and craft our future by clarifying our voice and vision.”
Dipankar Mukherjee, Artistic Director , Pangea World Theater
About the Conference:
The First Asian American Theater Conference (Next Big Bang) was held in 2006 in Los Angeles. In 2007, the first-ever Asian American Theater Festival was held in New York City. This year's conference expands the national dialogue for hundreds of Pan Asian artists, whose contributions to American theater continue to influence and shape the lives of all Americans.
About the Hosts:
Mu Performing Arts is home to Theater Mu, an Asian American theater company, and Mu Daiko, a Japanese style taiko (drumming) group. Founded as Theater Mu in 1992, Mu's mission is to be a premier company producing theater and taiko from the heart of the Asian American experience, and it has come to be known for its unique blending of Asian and Western artistic forms in the expression of Asian and Asian American stories and music.
Pangea World Theater is committed to international works, styles and traditions that illuminate the human condition, end divisiveness and celebrate differences. They strive to bring communities across the world together through theater productions, workshops and speakers and view the stage as a powerful international forum and a podium for discussion. Throughout their work they employ a cross-ethnic vision of tolerance and human rights through excellence in the arts.
For more information, contact conference coordinator Pablo at 612-767-9915, ext. 1 or email pablo@aatheaterconference.org.
Registration and additional information is available on the Conference Web site http://aatheaterconference.org.
