Day 2, The Next Big Bang
Breakfast session.
East Wes Artistic Director Tim Dang at right (with self described personal assistant to the left).
InterACT's Dennis Yep with actor Amy Hill.
Day 2 Opening session, with East West's Tim Dang, Pan Asia's Tisa Chang, NAATCO's Mia Katigbak, Ma-Yi's Jorge Ortoll, Mu's Rick Shiomi and 2g's Grace Lee.
NAATCO's Mia Katigback.
Following was a group exercise, dividing the participants by geography of birth, work, year of birth and year they entered Asian American theatre. What was striking (from someone who entered the field in 1979), was the relative handful who were active at that time, with a great, great mob of people representing all those who entered the field in the 1990s and 2000s.
Assembling the Asian American Theatre timeline. The Revue and the Next Big Bang people will be working on publishing it by the end of summer.
Breakout Session: The Dynamism of Aesthetics in Asian American Theatre
notes by Soo-Jin Lee
Ping Chong is a complicated outsider. Not in American realism. Not a follower of American theater structure in terms of creative process. For he does not use the director, set designer, dramaturg, etc. paradigm.
1. Aesthetically, he is an outsider because his theatrical background includes Cantonese opera and the experimental NYC scene. Instead of textual language, he uses symbols and metaphors.
2. Politically, he is rejected by some as far as being included in the APA scene.
3. He tackles the ontological question of who we are. He is close to the Chinese in spirit but in practice not.
We must address the lack of representation: Asians and all their complexities.
Theater shouldn’t just be about the Asian American context. What about the people who we are now? Our contribution to our citizentry as Asians?
How about plays without ethnic markers? Julia Cho is doing it.
Applying the Hegelian triangle of thought, East and West will come together to create something new. Something distinctly its own.
So we have these ideas for new and more challenging theater, but there’s always the goddam market! What’s going to develop the audience to appreciate certain theater? We must create the demand for new and more sophisticated supply. Great work is being done. It just hasn’t surfaced yet.
Take self-consciousness off the label. (Label being Asian American, etc, etc)
Follow your obsession.
Hybrid identity – mixed race people privileging one identity over the other.
There is a commonality between queers and minorities.
To encapsulate, there’s a notion to define “Asian American” but it houses a multitude of origins. Keep complexity alive. Synthesize opposing factors to create something new. There are venues around the country that let you do what you do. The main purpose of the conference is to acknowledge that there is such a thing as Asian American Theater.
There’s a constant redefinition of who we’re doing shows for because there will always be a new influx of immigrants. We can go beyond writing constantly naïve plays which keeps describing who we are. Let’s just “be” in our plays.
The 21st century is up for grabs. We will use “Asian American theater” as long as it’s useful. Where is it now? We should open our eyes to absorb everything in a global sense.
Breakout Session: Audience Development
(notes by the Revue)
led by Mu's Managing Director. What was striking in that session were the numbers of groups who were averaging 50-75% of the house sold per show, with one or two averaging sold out houses.
Continuing the breakout session on audience development, as groups contribute to a colelction of strategies that have worked in the past and challenges they have faced. These collected strategies will be published on the Next Big Bang website in mid August 2006.
Breakout Session: Who Are We Creating For?
notes by Soo-Jin Lee
Going into the Lion’s Den is fun.
1. Who is the core audience?
2. Entrepreneurship
3. Know your institutions
Why you’re produced at certain theaters?
Mainstream or Asian American.
Is there an Asian American audience? Trying to convert Asian American people to the theater.
Writing for the white audience is not easy. The underpinning is to attack white supremacy.
Is one ethnicity transportable to other ethnicities?
What’s transgressive?
Dinner time and several Open Space meetings continued, including a session on Asian American sketch comedy that included Cold Tofu, Stir-Friday Night and Pork Filled Players, which went into process and material.
Mu's Rick Shiomi with Tuesday night Keynote Speaker Juliana Pegues.
"Whatever about us that is without us is not for us."
