 California and was really yearning, you know, for a sense of connection to the Asian-American community. And so for me it's full circle from the time of being at the very first National Asian-American Theatre Conference in Los Angeles, which is my hometown, to now being able to welcome all of you to my current hometown here in Philadelphia and to be able to host this event. So thank you again for being part of it. I think there are a few other acknowledgments that I want to do. I'm trying to decide the order. I think what I would like to do next is actually invite the my fellow Kata board members to step onto stage and to be able to be acknowledged and to introduce themselves. Should we do it in order of geography? Hi, I'm Andrea Saf, artistic director of Artreaction, Inc. Hello, I'm Jorge Ortoll. I'm the executive director of my company in New York City. Hi, I'm Tim Dang. I'm the producing artistic director of East West Players in Los Angeles. Tisa Chang, Pan-Asian Repertory Theater in New York City, probably the oldest one in this room and maybe around a lot of theaters. No, no, no, me personally, Tim, me. So I just say East West is the oldest theater and Pan-Asian second oldest, but I'm saying I am. Therefore, so I'm really happy to be here to see you and to know all of you. Thank you, Tisa. I was almost going to say that we could line up in order of age, but I already had a chance to introduce myself. I'm Leilani Chan. I'm with Theater Productions in Los Angeles. I'm Rick Shiyomi. I'm representing all the independent artists here. Hi, I'm Meena Natarajan and I'm the executive and literary director of Pangea World Theater in Minneapolis. I'm Randi Reyes. I'm the artistic director of Mu Performing Arts, otherwise known as Rick Shiyomi's theater company. I'm Rick Shiyomi's godson. I'm Victor Mayag. That's not a joke, actually. It's a truth. I'm Victor Mayag, artistic director of 2G Second Generation in New York. One of the newest members on the board. We're missing one person and that is Mia Katikbak. She is the producing director of Natco, National Asian American Theater Company. She's doing a show currently so she'll be here at one o'clock in the morning after her show and head back to New York City at three o'clock because she's doing a show. But she says hello and you'll get to see her tomorrow morning as well. And she is the chair of the board, yes. Thank you. And also very quickly, all right, board members are welcome to sit back down. Also, I just wanted to acknowledge two other individuals, Jeff Musso, who is the general manager of Kata. He said he did not want to come on stage, but maybe he'll like raise his hand and let us wave. Jeff Musso and then also Juliet Lee, who is our local confess coordinator this year. Was she out there? She might still be at registration. But without the two of them, it would have been impossible for this event to be to be able to happen. So thank you both to Jeff and to Juliet. And I hope that if you haven't had a chance to meet them or any of our board members that you'll be able to find opportunities to connect over the course of the next two and a half days. Also, I wanted to acknowledge some of the funders who have made this gathering possible. Generous support from the Ford Foundation, through the Institute of International Education, the James Irvine Foundation, the National Performance Network, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and we'll hear from Sharon Battles from the Pennsylvania Council in just a few moments, I think, if she's in the house. Yes. And the Wincote Foundation here in Philadelphia. Thank you to those funders. And then also thank you to many of our local host committee members who are listed in the program. And then also our co hosts, the venues that are that are partnering with us, including Interact Theatre Company, Satrasen, Fringe Arts, which is gorgeous space we're in tonight. And also Underground Arts, where the open mic will be held tomorrow night. So thank you to those folks. And Sharon, are you here? Yes? Okay. And so I wanted to invite Sharon Battles onto stage. She's someone who has been, she's a program officer with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. And among her other duties runs a very special program that's called Preserving Diverse Cultures. And it's her program that first supported Asian Arts Initiative as we were becoming an independent nonprofit organization. And it's also the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts that has been an incredible supporter of us bringing the Confests to Philadelphia and to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So I'd like to welcome Sharon for a few brief comments. Welcome, everyone. This is wonderful. My performance days are long gone. But I wanted to say on behalf of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, we're delighted to welcome the 2014 National Consortium of Asian American Theatres and Artists Conference and Festival to Pennsylvania. The richness and diversity of the many different Asian cultures represented in Pennsylvania by your attendees make the Commonwealth a more vibrant, interesting, and global community. And keeping with your conference theme, home, here, there, where, you have found a home in Philadelphia, which is in turn home to your host, Asian Arts Initiative, some of your hosts, Asian Americans United, and Catsey Villafone, who you have probably seen on Death Comedy Jam. She's really made a name for herself. And we were very privileged to have her perform with us. We took her to California when we went and she performed there. So we, we claim her. We appreciate the honor of hosting Qatar here in Pennsylvania. And thank Gail Issa for having the genius and tenacity because she's been talking about this for at least three years. A reality. Gail is no stranger to remarkable foresight, starting with the founding of the Asian Arts Initiative, to receiving the 2005 Governor's Awards for a creative community, to being the first Asian American to serve as a council member on our governing board. PCA provides support. Yes, she does. She deserves a huge round of applause. Support for many of the organizations here, including all of the hosts. As Marcus Garvis said, a people without the knowledge of their past, history, origin and culture is a tree without roots. Two decades ago, the Asian Arts community was comprised of community arts organizations offering folk and traditional programs. Today, there are organizations that span the spectrum from folk and traditional to presentation and exhibition of contemporary arts. And the recognition and representation of those contemporary Asian artists is owed to the hard work of Gail Issa and some of the original members of Tiger Tiger, probably about 20 some years ago. And the Asian Arts Initiative and the founders of the Asian Americans United and to all of those artists and administrators, we say, thank you. And I really want to close by saying Pennsylvania is rightly proud of the growth and development of its Asian arts community. We look forward to continuing the work begun during this conference and continued in this historic conference. Finally, to our friends and colleagues, all of you from around the world, we wish everyone a successful conference and festival. Sincerely, Philip Horn, who unfortunately couldn't be here today. He's attending another duty on many, many meetings in DC, but he does send his support, his appreciation and his applause for finally bringing this to Pennsylvania. So a few housekeeping types of announcements before we get folks up on their feet. We are very pleased to announce that that HowlRound TV is live streaming tonight's plenary, as well as the plenary and breakout sessions throughout the conference. These sessions will also be available for viewing after the conference is over on HowlRound. And the link is bit.ly slash the N-A-A-T-F. It's also listed in your program if you want to look forward that way. So please participate in that way. Also, a couple of additional, several additional things I wanted to highlight. One of the other partner productions that myself and Asian Arts Initiative have been supporting is happening tonight and also tomorrow night over at the Painted Bright Arts Center. And it's a performance of Dennis Kim's Tree City Legends. So if you are able to fit it into your schedule, we're providing complimentary tickets to all confessed attendees. And we hope that you'll be able to appreciate what is really a beautiful story of four brothers sort of raising themselves in an immigrant family. And coping with both loss and love. And so I hope that folks will have a chance to check that out. There's more information at the registration table if you need it and also in your programs. Also, some of you may have noticed that we are trying to make lunch available during the conference days. For those of you, especially who are going to be rushing in between different kinds of events, the lunch is available for purchase. And I can assure you that it's going to be delicious and sourced from a lot of amazing Philadelphia Asian American restaurants. So I hope that if you are interested that you'll take time tonight to actually pre-order or so that we sort of know how much food to have available. Also, I want to encourage everyone to join us again tomorrow night for the Kata Open Mic that will start at 10pm as I mentioned over at Underground Arts in Asian Arts Initiative Neighborhood. And Reggie Kibiko, who many of you are familiar with, will be hosting that and is still open for signups and also other features who want to volunteer yourselves. So we hope that we'll see you there. There will be a cash, there is a cash bar at Underground Arts as well. So it should be a really fun late night venue. And then on Saturday, if you're able to stick around, after the plenary and breakout sessions, Asian Arts Initiative will be hosting a happy hour wine reception at 6.30. And then also a closing night party starting at 9pm. So I invite you to be part of that as well as everything now and in between. And look forward to seeing you there. Finally, for tonight, I'm definitely excited about the plenary conversation, both for the introductions of everyone in the room and then also a mini panel that we have planned, really exploring the themes of community engagement and activism as well as discussing multidisciplinary work, which is so much of what, for me and for Asian Arts Initiative, really drives our own programming and our own vision. And so look forward to that conversation tonight, being able to help shape the conversations for the rest of the conference and also helping us really chart the future for our field. And with that, I would like to invite Andrea ASAF to begin the facilitation of the next section. Thank you, Gail. Hey, Gail, is there a hashtag? What's the hashtag, y'all? Hashtag NAATF. So if you're a social, no, no, no, no. Okay, so that's our hashtag if you're doing social media. So I am going to introduce, well, we are going to introduce something that's happening. We already started today and it's going to be happening throughout the conference is that there is a devised theater workshop happening that I'm facilitating with this amazing team of artists who are going to introduce themselves to you in just a second. And our job is to to engage with you and reflect back and play and keep a sense of interactivity and conversation going throughout the conference. So you'll see us popping up in a few different ways. And we are going to co-facilitate this interactive opening. And first, you're going to meet them come on out team ensemble. And they're going to introduce themselves to you in just one second. And they get nine seconds, nine seconds each to introduce themselves. Okay, who's started which end are we starting on? Yeah, great. Wait, wait, wait for the clock. Okay, so ready, go. And how you identify? Oh, you weren't there for that. Okay, we'll come back to you. We'll come back to you. KT, wait, for our team. I have to do it. Andrea Saf Lebanese American queer theater artists, spoken word artists, director, writer, I make shit happen. That's basically it. Now, so give it up for our devised theater team one more time, our ensemble. And now we would like to invite you all onto the stage. Come on down. Please leave your belongings at your seat. Join us out here. Don't be shy peeps. This is a great moment to find your peeps. So just kind of find your way into a circle so everyone can see. Okay, great. So how many people have been to a Kata conference or festival before make some noise. Awesome. How many people this is your first one? Oh, awesome. Okay, so some of you have maybe done some of these before, but because we are different every time, we are going to do some similar things that you may remember from previous conferences. And so the first one we're going to the first one we're going to do is about this notion of home. And we're going to ask you to place yourself in the space. If this mark, if this orange green spike mark were Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the United States on the continent of North America, place yourself in relation to this spot in terms of where you were born. You all got to figure that out. Where's north? North. Okay, great. And go. Okay. Yeah, so feel free to, of course, introduce yourselves to your the people in your spot. So let's see. So is this our is Philly here? Philly there? Okay. And DC, Florida, Puerto Rico, India, Philippines, Australia, Phoenix, Los Angeles. There's a big LA group there. San Francisco, the duo in Seattle, Toronto, Canada. Did I miss somebody? Oh, Chongqing, China, South Korea. Manila, Philippines. Yeah, so we're connected. It's too bad we can't do a globe, right? All right, great. So now the next question, everyone. Again, if that spike mark is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Where is home now? Where is home now? Get a sense for a few of the London, England. This the Philly group here? Okay, so Philly, and just a few more. I won't get everyone this time, but Pasadena. Okay. And all right, so great. So now we're going to animate this journey. Go back to your born place, your starting place. And when I say go, you're going to find your way to the place that home is now and use your body to explore or say something about what that journey was like and how you ended up in wherever home is now. Okay, so you're moving from point A to point B. And how you move is an expression of something about that journey, that path. Okay. So everybody focus. Quiet. Ready? All right, so let's just throw out into this space, a couple of like a word or thought about that journey. Anyone just call out something 110 freeway across the country and back road trip. Adventure. Improvise. Parents, show to show. Word. All right, nice. Give yourselves a hand, everybody. So moving to the next thing. Now we're going to reconfigure ourselves totally. I'm going to ask you to do something to I'm going to I'm going to create some categories that and knowing that some of you may inhabit more than one. And so what you will have to figure out is what your relationship is to these different categories. Okay, totally self identify. One of them, let's see, let's put upstage over there is if you identify as an artist. Okay, and then if you're in that corner where Tracy is, that is educator, if you're an educator. And over there, where you see viet and Justin, those are activists and organizers and advocates. So move to where you primarily identify as in the current moment, artists, educators, downright. And if you don't identify as anything, you could stay in the middle. So organizers, activists, and advocates down left, educators down right, artists up center. And so if you hold multiple or have different relationships to these different things, go ahead and figure out what that looks like in your body, how you move between these spaces. Go ahead and animate this, like what is that relationship between these identifiers, you can use words, you can use sound, your body, whatever, and pause. All right, so tell us a little bit, let's just popcorn out like a few thoughts or things that came up for you as that was happening, observations or your own choices, fluid can't seem to settle. Multiple hats, fun, tired, stretch, inevitable, reaching by default, bridging. Excellent. So we're going to move into the next section of this. Next section. So now we are going to line up by years of years of experience that you identify in professionally in your creative field. So I'm going to leave that to you to decide what professional means and what creative field means. We're going to do your one year or less if you're new to the arts and your first time here, that will be KT over here. That's one year and we're going to go all the way to 50 or plus. 50 or plus and that's where Tracy is. So somewhere on the spectrum, the middle will be 25 years. Line yourself where you professionally identify with how many years of experience you have in your creative field. See all of your beautiful bodies. Let's push this way. Let's let's stretch out this line a little bit. Look at this amazing group. Look at this wealth of experience over here. Hello. What? So, so let's let's speak to this. What I want to do a photo shoot for Vanity Fair right now. This is amazing. So please tell us how many years would you say you've been in the arts? More than 40. More than 40. 39. 39. 34. 34. 32. We're looking at 30 plus years around this side. Give them a round of applause. I'm just I'm just odd by the number of young people standing on this side of the room. It's amazing because it gives us such hope and confidence for the future of of this theater scene. Yeah. How many years? 20. 20. Two. Two. I'm so excited. My name tag fella. And right now we're plop in the middle. Gail, how many? 21. 21. Awesome. Give yourself a round of applause. Great. So, so I actually actually got my start at the Asian Arts Initiative 16 years ago. In a workshop with Dan Kwong. Yes. So now I want everyone to think about what is your vision for what we can achieve through API theater and performance in your lifetime? Think about the biggest possible picture of that and a word or a phrase that embodies part of that for you. And take a moment reflect. And as you reflect, thank you for asking what is your vision? What's a word or phrase that embodies part of your vision of what we can achieve through API theater and performance in your lifetime? And as you contemplate that, please move about the space. Eight. Yeah, and we're we're using API Asian American as inclusive. And why as so it can it is expansive and expanding. And as you're moving around, contemplate what your word or phrase is. And once you have figured out what it is, come into a circle facing inwards, come into a circle facing inwards as we began. And if you're still contemplating that's still awesome. But I'm going to go around and hear your word or phrase for us bias about us and near us. And if and if you resonate with that, please make some type of gesture that is visible as you are able. Oh, can you come back to me? Brown stories at the center for all theaters of color as regional theaters. No longer silent. To always have a seat at the table. Asians on the West End Asians on Broadway. Thank you. Those are some beautiful visions. And we're going to come back to this question later in our time together before this weekend is over. Please give yourselves a hand. And super quick, we've had a request if we can do a group photo, but this is going to have to be really quick because it wasn't in the plan. So as we right before we transition into the plenary group photo, so everybody go over there. And and let's see if we can do this real quick, because you all are so beautiful. We are all so beautiful. Get close. Don't be shy. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Yes, we definitely need the cat aboard in the in the photo. And Jeff. All right, who's taking the phone? Here we go. One, two. Okay, thank you everyone. Now find your way back to your seat and give yourselves a hand. That was awesome. And we'll need chairs on stage, please. So everyone, please give a hand to our defied theater ensemble. You will be seeing them again. And Gell. Okay, so I'd like to invite our our plenary panel up to join us. Come on down and take a seat. I can't see you out there. Come on down. And we're gonna go straight into this in just a moment. As soon as we've got everybody. Okay, great. So I have the great honor and pleasure of being able to moderate a really awesome conversation that we're about to have. And I want to emphasize really that it is a conversation and that the folks up here are are here to help us start the conversation. And then we are gonna have some time to all talk and build together. And that this is the beginning, hopefully, of some conversations that will continue throughout our time together. So the first thing I'm going to do is ask our plenary folks to introduce themselves. And I have to flip pages. Okay. And the way they're going to introduce themselves is very briefly, to say their name, something about to introduce their themselves, their work, what is their connection to Kata, and something that they see emerging or trending in the field. And that's going to begin our conversation. So we're going to hear from each, each plenary panelist. And then we're going to hear them have a conversation about what they hear each other say. And then we're all going to have a conversation building on that together. So and I think we actually choose an order. Oh, well, for introductions, we'll just go down the line. And then we'll, is that cool? Yeah. So name some introduce yourself, your work, your connection to Kata, and something that you see emerging or trending. Okay. Hey, everybody. My name is Tracy Katokiriyama. And my relationship to Kata, I performed with edge of the world in 2007 in New York, and then with pro project in 2011. And now I'm here with the artist exchange. I'm a multi platform artist, which leads to sort of a fluid artistic identity, but a much compartmentalized experience. So I work in the fields of theater, in devised as well as more traditional theater, I write for publication and short form poetry and stage. But then I also work with movement and music and different kinds of performance. Organizations that I'm with names like Tuesday Night Project, Generations of War, and with a new knee K LGBTQ gathering called Okaeri, which means welcome home. And something that I wanted to touch on two things. I'm starting to see at a better pace. I think as a person who works with an aerial artist as a stage partner, my partner, Kennedy, we're starting to see very slowly an emergence of more acceptance for aerial slash circus arts within theater narrative. But it also is where I think we're a long ways away. But I think we're starting to see more openings for that in different presenters. And then I think in a longer in terms of like the longer run when I think about a lot of my friends who identified principally as actors in the 90s. Now, many, many, many have emerged to working in different platforms and working in different disciplines and finding passion as writers and producers. So I feel like I see a lot more self determined pathways and pathmaking. Hi, I'm Sumi Kim. And I am an actor and performing artist based in New York City. I am here to present my project Change, which is based on an inspired by the life of Kathy change who was a Philly based performance artist and activist who self emulated on the campus of UPenn in 1996. So I this project is I'm a resident artist at here Art Center, which is a theater in in New York City, and they support artists who are creating hybrid work. And it's also being it's also part of the NPN creation fund in residency. And so I've been being presented by Qatar, as well as Asian Arts Initiative through the NPN. And so I'm super excited to be here. And this is my third time with the National Asian American Theater Festival. The first time was in 2007. And presented a show called Legion Dairy, which was based on Bruce Lee. The second one was in 2011 in LA, did an adaptation of Teresa Hawke and Charles Dicte, which was called Dicte bells fault appeal to sky. And my work is very collaborative. I collaborate very closely with a director as well as designers and musicians and work in a multi disciplinary platform. So some of the the waves of the trends that I see I can only speak from my own experience is that artists and residents at here Art Center is that I see a lot of a lot of people reaching out and branching beyond their their main discipline of say music or playwriting or choreography. They're like creating performance work that kind of blurs boundaries to to make work that is device and and expands beyond genre. Another thing that I'm seeing in the Asian American community is like the strengthening and voice to the communities, primarily in New York City, through organizations like APAC and Asian American Help Me Victor put coalition. Yes. Yeah. So anyway, there's there's a sort of like non silencing of voices through the Asian American artist community. And that's something that I'm seeing that's very proactive and excited. Thank you. So my name is Nina Natrajan, and I am from Penji, a world theater in Minneapolis. And my connection with Qatar is I'm on the founding. I'm the founding one of the founding board members, correct? Of Qatar. It's like a long time ago. But it really and and the work that we do in Penji is multi disciplinary. It's also we do all kinds of work. It spans the same spectrum. We do community engaged work and also work that is crosses disciplines, as well as present and produce plays as well and work performance art. So it really kind of runs the whole spectrum. The kinds of I thought I would stick with the Midwest, just in terms of like the trends that I see, because I feel like there's so much arts funding. And part of it is also arts funding. So I'm actually looking at how can we look at work that you know, is also created because arts funding is there in the in the place. But a lot of creative place making funding is coming to Minneapolis, St. Paul. And so I'm just seeing a lot of work that is goes outside of the theater that actually percolates into the streets that goes into stores that actually mobile work that happens on on the streets as well. A lot of vitalization, the conversation of economic revitalization. And you know, so the whole creative place making thing. And for me, and I'd love to speak about the concerns of that. But that's not right now. But I do see that trending and a lot of great work going on, which I love. And also connected with that work, we're actually having conversations around things like equity. So really, I feel like I've been part of so many challenging conversations around equity that are wonderful. And in Minneapolis, at least, I see a lot of coalitions of people of color coming together and actually talking about equity issues around funding around the work that's presented around work that's seen around who presents what and who does what. So I'd love to be able to talk more about that. Hi, my name is Snehal Desai. And I actually got my job through Cata two years ago or three years got the first conference. I attended the TCG conference in L.A. and through that met Tim Dang, the artistic producing director at East West Players. And I also was in the opening plenary there, but in a weird mask costume. So you may not recognize me. So this time I'm unmasked, thankfully. And I am a theater director and playwright primarily, as a director, I love doing site specific work. And as I also am a solo performer, because I am the worst scene partner in the world for most people. At East West, I am now the literary manager and artistic associate. And I'm interested in three things. One of which Mina mentioned, which is event based theater or site specific theater and kind of theater that's going the trend of say what's happening with the book store so that people aren't interested in large houses. They're not interested in Barnes and Nobles and borders. They're interested in specific experiences, individual experiences that are smaller. So I'm interested in the dialogue about that. I'm interested in this new model of theater of consensus building. And a shout out to Sima Saueco at Pasadena about that. And finding audiences that where there's a mutual offering of what do you have to offer us and vice versa. And interested in those models in the theater. And then the third thing that I'm interested in dialogue tonight about is, you know, this idea of that the more people you put on stage, the bigger your audience. The more you base your theater in your community, the more interaction you have with those members and the more, the wider the base. And the question of if you do that, do you compromise artistic quality? And so I think that's something that's at a kind of a tipping point. And so I'm interested in questions about that. Thank you. And I am a spark leader with TCG this year. Thank you. Awesome. So that was fantastic. Lots of juicy things. I'm going to pull out a couple of threads. So interdisciplinarity, self-determination of the work, coalition building, conversations around cultural equity, interactivity as a way of making work and also as a way of engaging. So now you all get to have a conversation for, really, maybe we'll do this quick. Maybe we'll just do like six minutes of hearing you respond to each other and then we'll open it up so that we end on time and we get to really hear what folks are thinking. So anything you want to respond to in each other's comments. And I'm going to push a little bit on this because we got some good juicy stuff around aesthetics and process. And I want to push a little bit to also talk about what is emerging or trending in terms of socially engaged or community engaged work or politically engaged work. So go ahead, Jill. I think maybe it'll help to speak about what the consensus building model is that you're talking about. I do think that's a really good starting point. Great. I'll talk about it briefly, but I'm not an expert, so just correct me if I'm off. It's a model of kind of finding shared common ground between groups. So if you're doing a theater piece about, say, origami, case in point, finding groups that in the community that are working in origami and doing that and going out and soliciting their advice and connecting them so that they, you know, and finding out what their needs are as a community and then as a theater trying to see if you can help them. And as a theater, obviously, your needs are wanting expertise about whatever you're doing a show about, but also audiences and finding a base and finding new audiences. And so it's about kind of that finding those intersections and those Venn diagrams and seeing how you can both help each other out versus, I just need this from you, you know what I mean, and trying to build relationships that last over time in those ways. Well, I'd love to hear, can we already put it out to the audience? Not yet. We're going to listen to you all for a few minutes. Let me just say that it's interesting to me how similar patterns of ways of working get called different things at different points in time, right? So there's this framing that's around like consensus-building as an artistic process, but then you might also call that community-based work or community-engaged process. Go ahead. And I think the vocabulary is co-opted from community-building. I think it's built from community-organizing actually. I think that's where she's directly, see my thesis, taken it from if I understand it correctly. And I mean, I guess I'm interested in work that gets created with community because we do so much community-based work and what does that look like and how do you build consensus when you're actually creating with other people in the community. And I feel like recently we've been engaged in a whole process about what really what really, really makes a difference. So the difference that makes a difference in a sense from human system dynamics and really looking at that and saying, what is it that we absolutely have to have in this community-based process? So if it's like work around social justice or it's around, art has to be a part of this or this, something that community-organizing has to be a part of every single meeting that we do, whether it's with the organizing committee or whether it's with, so I feel like I'm really kind of interested in those processes that also have social justice as a piece of the of the whole because if we're talking about social justice work we've got to practice in a way that includes that methodology. And I also want to just tease out of what you just said you said human systems dynamics, right? So that's another kind of inter-disciplinarity that we might be seeing more of one is aesthetic, but also literally collaborations between disciplines, between arts disciplines and outside the arts, right? And I would say that that's something that I see trending or emerging or getting stronger in the field as well. Well, I mean you know, projects that are specifically collaborations between science and art, for example, or technology and art or I'm right now, I never in my life thought I would be doing this working with the military like with veterans you know, collaborations between social service organizations and the arts. So, you know, in terms of how socially engaged work happens it seems like there's more inter-disciplinarity maybe emerging there as well as aesthetic experiments in across disciplines. I think it's worth it also to kind of go back to your point about does that compromise the art when to me it makes so much sense that it increases or it can increase the excellence in the process and the production itself. So you use the Origami example and like I would think that bringing someone who is an expert into that process and having some actual work, I'm not sure what you actually did in that process but you have them engage with the actors on stage who are in any way relating to paper and their character with that paper and that intention and that experience makes so much sense. Yeah, I agree in terms of the research that it definitely deepens the experience. I think it's a question of it's about the actor actually so is it a local actor that you're casting in your production and you're casting someone from another city who is had a very, you know, I think that's where it's a question of the artistic level but definitely anything that you can do to deepen the experience for the audience members and connect them I think is wonderful but I think a lot of us talk about or aspire to everyone to work at regional theaters and I think regional theaters often are the most out of touch with their communities in terms of who's there and who's working and so I think it's a question I think that's what 90% of the companies here in this room are very community based and driven and they find their artists there but it's funny because everyone wants to work at these other institutions that aren't as connected to the community. I guess just coming from the perspective of someone who is like an independent performing artist and produces their own work what I found through subject matter is that there are different ways to engage within your community and have conversations and reach communities that you may not have been otherwise engaged in previously so for me through the Hemispheric Institute because of my project Kathy Change I have been able to hold artist talks and have conversations and there's also broader conversations about Asian American women and mental illness or like performance and suicide and political activism and what is performance art and what is activism and how do they merge so there's been a lot of amazing experiences on my end personally through the doing of this art making process that has brought in my scope of what I ever call myself doing as an actor I guess that just reminds me of the fact that I mean I spoke about coalitions before but I also feel like one of the things that I'm really interested in is how do you create collaborations or create coalitions between communities of color right and so that would be something that I would love to ask a question like how many people here work within like two communities of color or really also the other community that comes to mind for me is immigrant community like first generation immigrant communities and how does that work what does that work look like aesthetically and so I'm interested in these questions as well and actually as we were preparing for the panel earlier we had a conversation about perhaps a question or challenge for the field is how do we move beyond this disconnect between this gap I would say this like chasm between artists who are first generation or working in immigrant communities and really are working in those communities and the national arts infrastructure that you know the networks the funding systems the organizations the national organizations and how do we bridge that gap how do we create more access and more collaboration and more exchange perhaps so now I see you have the mic and I'm going to open it up if you would like to pose another question or challenge as we open it up yeah I would love to just echo actually Mina's comment and open it up it's a question about it's tied hand in hand to this of an Asian American artistic aesthetic and what that is and where it's going I think we're very interested in that question particularly from a place of I think a lot of what has defined Asian American art in the last two three decades is about being first generation right so it's about first generation struggles and I think as we move forward in time and there's greater cultural diversity in this country I mean I think that's what we're interested also is this idea of cultural intersectionality and as artists you know we're all interested now in putting the world that we see on stage but often what we're still seeing is the singular play about one experience and so is there anything that we can do to support that or help that or you know what is the aesthetic or where is it going and how can institutions support artists so I'm going to open it up and we have about ten minutes to dialogue and I really want to encourage us to not make this a standard Q&A but to just widen the circle of the conversation so folks can respond to each other they can you can respond to stuff you've heard you can share something that's percolating for you and can we get more house light is that possible because it's really hard to see folks up here and I see a hand up there already and maybe can someone else on the devised theater team help run Mike so that would be awesome I just wanted to shout out to the people who are not on the coast and also especially to folks in the south because I think those of us who are in the south in the midwest geography necessitates Asian Americans working with other people of color and that's something that I kind of a lucky coincidence and so I almost all of my work is done with Latinos and people of African descent and I'm excited to hear more about other folks who find that that's the case even if you're on the coast I'm headed over there and so one of the devised theater team please help me run Mike's can I have a volunteer please I have something here I think in the work that we do with as diverse communities that we are under the umbrella of Asian American which is a huge in just the Twin Cities there are 40 different ethnic under Asian American there's 40 different cultures under that specifically in the Twin Cities in Minnesota so to me there's a huge issue in terms of engaging community based on a project and how do you sustain that how do you get other communities not to be if you're Hmong you're interested in this Hmong play if you're Vietnamese community you're interested in the Vietnamese community but how do you get them to be interested in the Asian American work that we're doing what we share together that to me is a key and I worry that this is the same thing that the other bigger regional theaters do is when they have a black play they engage the black community they have an Asian play suddenly they care about you and they're giving you free tickets and then in the rest of their season they're not there anymore and that's the kind of work that I want to avoid that oh because I'm doing a Vietnamese play right now I'm engaging this community but how do I keep them engaged the whole season because I'm telling stories that aren't told because I'm telling stories about the Asian American experience I'm not answering Randy but firstly I want to thank you all because I love hearing the input from newer artists, younger artists I do when you ask talk about community arts and collaborative arts and this whole new way of devising theater or creating theater I do think that we have to look back and think a little bit about some of the parameters that are recognized so I would love to because you're asking a lot of questions and one of them Andrea you talked about is the chasm for instance in terms of funding or recognizability so I just want you to be sure because to not forget and to keep wrapped up in your creative process that there are things unlike training and excellence and standards of standards of excellence that I think that perhaps help to shape and define where you're going so I wanted personally just to really say that loud and clear because I think that that is sometimes what is missing you talk snail you are so eloquent and articulate I love hearing you this guy isn't he is amazing but when you what we are all very very concerned about the direction what is what what defines Asian American theater where are we going who is participating who is drawing where are the demarcations and why you know and Pangea you do so much work with Gail you do so much work with community arts I just want to say that let's not forget some of the parameters that we need or criteria so that we can absolutely really really achieve what you're doing so we've got two people on the docket but I want to give the panelists a chance to respond to some of these questions as well anybody I guess and in response to that I really would like to say that I am interested in figuring out what does it mean to really have multiple aesthetics in the room like that is affected by multiple multiple way you know like because this is just the western aesthetic is just one thing that we see and many of us especially as new generation immigrants come from countries in which we have long artistic practices so how does that get included into I mean I'm actually asking another question I think training is it's a mixed bag right and so how how does I mean how can we I mean part of what we're doing really to and I'm not I guess I am giving a plug for the institute that and are to actually creating which is that we're really like looking at the next generation of theater directors and people of color and women directors especially of which there's been a lack in the field and saying okay what do we do how do we train a new generation and how can we actually use the expertise of people like say no book or people like you know people from everywhere all over the country and how can we define that new aesthetic and also really look at say American work and see how does that influence us what's the aesthetic like is it different where you know what's the storytelling like what's the storytelling structure like what's form like what's content like and so how's that going to change how we see a theater in the United States or Asian American theater in the United States so I just want to pick up on something that was earlier about self self-determination right self-determining our own work our own standards of excellence our own understanding what techniques and we are actually valuing and how we learn from each other in that we've got one up there and then here and then here so we've got three testing okay hey my name is Ratna Owen I'm actually from the south Atlanta South East Atlanta College Park where we don't have a public system of transportation that got taken away from us and like most of the Asian stuff is up north in Dorival past Atlanta so I can't access those stuff and the API orgs are very electoral they're based on getting rights to citizenship and things like that and you know arts is encouraged already within our communities but like we were talking about like what's next what's the next step in Asian American arts like I'm not even there yet like how do I enter that space you know how do I get there it's like where's it at like I don't know how to navigate it so like yeah just want to connect to y'all so I just want to say hi to as well thanks I was just from the south okay I will say to that the one thing that helps us in this day and age is technology to break down the distance barrier if nothing else and so you shouldn't ever have to feel isolated in that way if you can't physically get somewhere that we should all be able to reach you and you should be able to reach us otherwise and so much of the work is created that way and so it's about finding those networks and those connections and keeping that dialogue going and building this network exactly briefly the generation first generation second generation and the four generations I think the immigrant generation is probably more interested in the preservation of the culture the second generation and those going forward that's most of the people in the room I think are interested in integrating into the cultural quilt of the nation that they have adopted so I think well for playwrights in particular as a playwright driven company Mai always tries to think outside the box in terms of why do playwrights today the young playwrights in their 20s, 30s have to write about first generation blues I think we have to go beyond that now and write about whatever we want to write about whether it's about teenagers in outer space or about the microfinance situation or about biking cross-country to the United States with white people I think we need to go beyond thinking that we have to write about Asian-Americans, Asian-Americans, we don't I think we have to liberate ourselves from that thinking and if you want to really integrate into the cultural quilt of the nation that's for the second and third and fourth generations going forward yeah and just to follow up on exactly that and Randy's comment I think it's a little bit about what we have to do is find a way about it's about easy marketing versus smarter marketing and what we have to do is to fight selling our families as the Vietnamese drama or the Korean family drama and the drama about a medical fit you know what I mean I think we have to dig deeper because no play is about one thing we often market those stories or reach an audience versus finding the deeper ways that are deeper themes that that play is talking about because I think when we go to see death of a salesman we're not like oh that's about a white family or that we're going because it's about a family that we can all connect to in a different way and I think that a lot of our work has been marginalized or pigeonholed because it has been in that way self-segregated and it's almost how do we find a different way of telling our stories okay so we're winding down on time we've got two more people in the docket and then I want to close out with the panel I'm going to pose a question do we want to integrate is that the goal I'm not sure that all of us have the same answer to that question Hi Lenny Daniels I founded the Philadelphia Black Theater Festival in 2000 it lasted until 2006 of course when it was time for someone else to step up people started going to it so I took a break but here's the thing you know we celebrated works by African American writers that our younger artists didn't know anything about you happen to mention death of a salesman it was just done by an all black cast here directed by Ozzie Jones and got wonderful reviews but again most of those artists had never heard of it so we find ourselves the people who have been doing this for a long time who actually went to school and got a degree in it no matter how much it does it serves us you know we came out thinking that we could pass things along and that's what we're trying to do the only reason that I'm here tonight is because I happen to call Sharon and tell her that I just proposed to my group that we're going to do the sound of music with an all black cast because it's a story and I think too often we let race separate from the story years and years ago the first time I had ever even looked at Fiddler on the Roof I was hired by an all white suburban school to direct it for them so you had one black woman a whole group of young white people and their parents and me bringing in Jewish actresses to talk about the experiences and that what this is supposed to be it's about educating everybody and letting them see that we're not that different color of skin means nothing if you're deaf if you're blind if you're poor it doesn't matter so the whole point of all of this is to not have to say to my younger students okay I know you like this music I know you love this story but you're never going to be cast in it professionally I'm sure that that's the same issue that Asian Americans have that Mexicans have that black people have I'm not saying that the Caucasian has taken over I'm saying that we've allowed it to matter what color of skin is more important than the people whose story we're supposed to tell we got two more and I know we got a wrap so Jonathan in there I think that I'm a theatre director from London and I've been working a lot in China and Hong Kong and I think that there's something about the fact that people are missing the fact that Americans are seen as sexy internationally and that would include Asian Americans I'd say and there's something about American dominant culture with the music African American the movies etc etc come on guys let's tap into this American sexiness that the world buys and you know it's the Asian bit but there's the American bit as well let's remind everyone that's the first point my second point is that we are very very international and all of us are connected with people in Asia or Europe whatever we talk to our family around the world all the time and I think there's something about that energy I've joined the dots as a second generation going back to China dealing with the root culture and actually there's lots of Asian Americans there actually all descent business wise so I think there's something about that strength you know those inspirations you've looked at Europe I went to the Medea piece today there's the Worcester group Aesthetics Influenciation American Work let's try and find what is the next influence you know who would have thought black slave culture would dominate the whole of the UK and the world now and you know so and I think that's looking forward Obama talked about the pivot to the east and I think you know there's a way to sort of exploit that you know the African Americans ultimately African American workers completely pervaded the west end last year and you know on broad day currently and I'm thinking that you know there's pivots to east and west that I think people can maximize and look into Hi thanks you know I strongly believe that we are stronger together than we are apart and that's a huge plus but I also want to remind us that Asian America that the phrase is an artificial construct that we don't have a lot of necessarily organic affinities that growing up my father had stories in the 20s about lynchings of Filipinos and segregation so I feel a close affinity to the African American community after 333 years of Catholic Spanish colonialism I am you know as much as I deny that I am Catholic and I have a close affinity to Latino communities I would just encourage us to expand and blast out the definition and not get so doctrinaire about Asian American and what that definition is especially because in these days where there are people who are mixed race and are not necessarily choosing to identify in this way we have to allow people meet them where they are rather than saying this is the way that we must define ourselves I'll stop there alright that was an amazing conversation please give a hand to the plenary and to everyone who spoke and I know there are a lot more thoughts and ideas and conversations to be had so please continue this conversation it is 750 and I'm handing it over to Gail thank you everybody so all of you for participating Andrea for facilitating and allowing me to not be on stage I think that right now we're actually going to be clear I'm looking at Jeff because he's going to tell me if I'm wrong okay so there's a short break so we want to be able to clear the theater for about 10 minutes so that we can set the stage for the performance showcase at 8 o'clock and we invite you out to the bar in the restaurant if you haven't already had a chance to get a drink there's the bars open over there and for those of you who are not staying for the performance showcase I hope that we will see you tomorrow morning bright and early at 9.30 a.m. over at Asian Arts Initiative where we'll be meeting