NWAAT presents world premiere dance piece

PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Rosa Joshi
Phone: 340-1445
April 25, 2000

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION, TRACES, OPENS MAY 4, 2000

The Northwest Asian American Theatre is thrilled to announce the world premiere of TRACES, an international multi-media dance theatre work, Thursday May 4 at the Theatre Off Jackson. TRACES kicks off A-FEST 2000, NWAAT's annual festival of Asian American and Asian work.

TRACES is the creation of Seattle filmmaker JOHN D. PAI and Malaysian choreographer MEW CHANG TSING. Thrown together in an international collaboration, these two artists from distant corners of the world discovered that they might actually be related. This astonishing revelation became the inspiration for a new multi-media dance theatre work in which a Chinese American and a Malaysian Chinese investigate their roots to find out just how Chinese they are.

Performers swing dreamily through a suspended jungle gym, paint calligraphic distress signals, vividly embody mythological beings, and much more in this daring, multi-disciplinary exploration of ancestral and contemporary identity. Featuring sound compositions by SUSIE KOZAWA, original music by BYRON AU YONG, scenic design by CRAIG WOLLAM, lighting design by PATTI WEST and costumes by RICK LOURIGH, TRACES also highlights some of the best Asian American contemporary dancers in Seattle, including YOKO MURAO, MELODY LIU and KU'ULEI MIURA.

John D. Pai and Mew Chang-Tsing have been collaborating together for the past year as part of NWAAT's International Artists Program (IAP). The IAP is an innovative program that conceives and produces multi-disciplinary collaborations between Asian/Pacific Islander (API) American artists from Seattle and artists from Asia. Initiated in 1995, with the help of The Ford Foundation, the IAP's first collaborative project resulted in the 1998 world premiere of HOME: PLACES BETWEEN ASIA AND AMERICA, a multi-disciplinary work created by five artists from Asia and the U.S.

John D. Pai has been creating experimental and documentary films for the last twelve years. His video and film installation reflections on a love supreme which was originally created for NWAAT's A-Fest '99 is currently part of The Tacoma Art Museum's exhibit.

Mew Chang Tsing is the founding artistic director of the acclaimed RiverGrass Dance Theater in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and has been hailed by critics as "among the most formidable, bold and challenging figures in modern Malaysian choreography." NWAAT audiences will remember Mew from her stirring performance of her solo piece A Peel in A-Fest '99.

CALL (206) 340-1049 FOR RESERVATIONS

DATES: May 4 - 14
Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m.
Sundays at 4 p.m.

TICKET PRICES: $15 General Admission
$13 Students/Seniors
$11 Groups of 5 or more
$9 Performing Artists
A-Fest passes available