Arts Briefs
May 25, 2007
FilAm and ChiAm Music and Stories
EVENT: Music and storytelling on the Filipino and Chinese American experience
DESCRIPTION: Featuring Charlie Chin and Evelie Delfino Sales Posch with Deo Arellano.
DETAILS: $5-10, May 26, 2-4 p.m., Manilatown Center, 953 Mission St., Ste. 30, San Francisco.
CONTACT: (415) 777-1130, manilatown.org
Spotlight Stealerz
EVENT: Presented by API Cultural Center and Queer Cultural Center
DESCRIPTION: L.A.-based theatre/comedy performance troupe explores issues within their multiple experiences, identities, and communities.
DETAILS: $10-12, May 26, 8 p.m., SFLGBT Community Center, 1800 Market St., San Francisco.
CONTACT: (415) 864-4126, , apiculturalcenter.org
Hagedorn’s ‘Fe in the Desert’
EVENT: World premiere of Jessica Hagedorn’s play
DESCRIPTION: Fe, her broken marriage, and a home invasion and burglary. Morphs Filipino melodrama with musicality and contemporary poetry.
DETAILS: $9-20, May 31-Jun. 25, 8 p.m., Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia St., San Francisco.
CONTACT: (415) 626-2787, theintersection.org
‘The GAPA Show’
EVENT: Presented by the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance
DESCRIPTION: Features visual arts, written word, and performance celebrating gay API cultural expression. Photography by Danny Dan, Long Wu, and Tommy Wu. Appearances by Mr. GAPA, AstroStud, and GAPA Men’s Chorus.
DETAILS: Free, Jun. 1, 7 p.m., SomArts Theatre, 934 Brannan St., San Francisco.
CONTACT: (415) 864-4126, gapa.org
Anonymous No More
EVENT: Collection of stories for and by women of color seeks artwork, poems, drawing, and audio submissions
DESCRIPTION: Topics can include: your life and how you find ways to resist on a daily basis and what keeps you going and inspires you.
DETAILS: Deadline: June 1. First person stories preferred. Include a 100 word bio.
CONTACT: Anonymous No More, 6312 Sherman St., Philadelphia, PA 19144
Off-Broadway Drama ‘Tea’
EVENT: Pan Asian Repertory Theatre presents Tea
DESCRIPTION: Four women gather to remember Himiko after she kills her abusive American husband and herself. Her friends, also war brides, meet at her house to drink tea, comb through Himiko’s life and consider their own.
DETAILS: $40, thru Jun 17, West End Theatre, 263 W. 86th St., 2nd floor, New York City.
CONTACT: (212) 868-4030, panasianrep.org
Asian American Lifestyle Magazine Launches
NEW YORK — Altra Magazine, a brand new upscale lifestyle magazine for Asian Americans, launches its spring issue with lifestyle and celebrity events, in celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
In April, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief Nancy Moran and the Young Korean American Professionals Network co-hosted a private pre-launch party at the Bryant Park Hotel, with celebrities James Kyson Lee of Heroes and John Cho of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and West 32nd.
Articles include interviews with Asian American cancer survivors, profiles of fashion designer Jason Wu, the man behind AngryAsianMan.com, and a look at Asian Americans’ efforts to fight racism in the media.
Korean Singer Rain More Popular Than Obama
The most influential person on the planet by far is South Korean singer Rain, according to a Time online poll.
Rain, a 24-year-old whose real name is Jung Ji-hoon, is phenomenally popular in Asia, where he made his film debut last year in a Korean movie with the English title I’m a Cyborg, but That’s O.K.
With 470,174 votes, Rain beat not only runner-up Stephen Colbert (278,381 votes) and the third-ranking Sanjaya Malakar, recently of American Idol, but also J. K. Rowling, Steven P. Jobs and Barack Obama.
—The New York Times
ImaginAsian Launches Anime Block
NEW YORK — ImaginAsian TV, America’s first 24-hour Asian American television network, announced that it would launch a new anime block called TMS Presents: Anime Classics. The block will feature classic anime series from Japanese animation studio, TMS Entertainment, a division of Sega/Sammy Corporation. Orguss, Nobody’s Boy Remi, and Cat’s Eye are scheduled to premiere on June 5.
“There are legions of classic anime fans who have been longing to see some of their favorite classic anime series on television,” said David Chu, Senior VP of programming and production.
‘Survivor’ Goes To China
NEW YORK — CBS has booked China as the location for the next edition of Survivor.
Production of U.S. entertainment projects in mainland China had been rare, due to logistical and government restrictions. But with a growing economy, China has begun a more open policy, including its active wooing to host the 2008 Beijing Olympics. While big screen features, such as 2006’s The Painted Veil, forged new ground by filming completely in China, CBS’s lensing of an entire series is a precedent for an American network.
The China setting should also boost Survivor’s appeal to overseas audiences.
— Variety
Jin Raps About Virginia Tech
LOS ANGELES — In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, it only took about 48 hours for pop music’s early responders to make their emotional reaction to the shootings known.
Jin, a New York rapper of Chinese American descent, posted “Rain Rain Go Away (Virginia Tech Tribute)” at the XXL Magazine website (www.xxlmag.com/online/p9306). The song serves as a real-time response, with the MC rhyming about his disbelief and sadness as he watched the tragedy unfold on CNN. In the song, he expresses his sadness to the unfortunate situation as he says “sisters and brothers, what could make a man take the lives of others…” Jin performed at Virginia Tech back in April of 2003 and is in utter disbelief that four years later, such an event would occur.
— LA Times
Kimora to Have Own Reality Show
Style Network is set to have its first comedy-based reality show revolving around fashion designer Kimora Lee Simmons, CEO of Baby Phat.
Dubbed Kimora (working title), the series — set to bow this summer — will chronicle her various adventures as “a mogul, a mother, a designer and a diva.”
Style exec VP Salaam Coleman Smith called Simmons “a fascinating woman” who is “refreshingly blunt, absolutely honest, and outrageously entertaining.”
“Nothing she does is small, nothing she says is insignificant, and nothing she wants is unavailable,” Smith added.
— Variety
Ma-Yi Theater Company Honors Leaders
NEW YORK — Asian American theater company Ma-Yi Theater Company recently honored Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang and Loida Nicolas Lewis, a best-selling author and CEO of TLC Beatrice, at its seventh annual benefit and awards dinner.
Supporters of the theater gathered to raise funds and honor Hwang and Lewis, with Leader in Arts and Leader in Community Service awards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the Asian American community.
“Mr. Hwang has been instrumental in giving voice to Asian Americans, and Ms. Lewis has given so much of herself to the community,” said Ma-Yi executive director Jorge Ortoll.
Bessie Badilla del Castillo and acclaimed painter Lolita Valderrama Savage were co-chairs.
Asian American History Series Wins Peabody
Portland-based Media Rites has won a 2006 Peabody Award for its radio documentary Crossing East.
The documentary, hosted by George Takei of Star Trek fame and comedian Margaret Cho, is the first radio series to examine in detail the history of Asian Americans. The eight-hour long program was made from more than 500 hours of oral history interviews, research and dramatic re-creations to trace the history of Asian American immigration to the U.S.
Stories in the series include the tale of Ing “Doc” Hay, a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine who created a thriving practice in the 1880s; the rise of immigration laws designed specifically to exclude Asian immigrants from the United States; and the immigration debates that continue in a post-9/11 world.
—The Oregonian
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