More on First Asian American theatre convening

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One over-riding impression was a sense of collegiality between everybody at the convening. There was a palpable sense of people working together, and being in the same boat. This is in marked contrast to the late 1980s and early 1990s, when everybody seemed extremely standoffish about cooperation; the Revue had attempted to get the four then-existing theatres interested in an early use of the Internet to communicate and cooperate, but that effort was met by resounding indifference.

Not so nowawadays; perhaps the pervasive influence of the Web has shrunk the borders of the world and removed the sense of geographic isolation. Almost all the participants at the convening had email and made extensive use of it to communicate and produce shows.

Then again....it could have been the messenger back then....

There is some VERY interesting work in fusing traditional Asian arts with standard Asian American theatre techniques. This was particularly evident in some of the demonstrations given at the convening. Theater Mu is doing very strong, very innovative work that permeates its entire season; Marcus Quinones is a HYPNOTIC dancer who combines modern dance and hula into a very fluid hole. Their demonstration combined hula, dance, taiko and storytelling into a fascinating, riveting piece of theatre.

As well, NWAAT is doing interesting work with its International Artists Program (I am interested in seeing the collaboration between Malaysian dancer Mew Chang Tsing and filmaker John Pye in year 2000). Is this the start of a trend? Who knows....

[Top: Zaraawar Mistry, Associate Artistic Director for Theater Mu, speaks with Rosa Joshi, acting Artistic Director for Northwest Asian American Theatre.

Bottom: Rick Shiomi, Artistic Director for Theater Mu.]

Page 3 on the convening