I was delighted to give a performative talk as part of a roundtable entitled “Performing Protest, Choreographing Coalitions: Asian American Performance and the Politics of Solidarity” at the annual Association for Asian American Studies conference on Mar 30, 2018 in San Francisco, CA.  This group of brilliant artist-scholars included Rosemary Candelario, Mana Hayakawa, Thao Ngyugen, and Lorenzo Perillo.

Performing Protest, Choreographing Coalitions: Asian American Performance and the Politics of Solidarity

In an era of heightened tyranny and dramatic displays of resistance, we ask: what is the role of the performer in building relationships between Asian Americans and other communities? How are politics of resistance performed, visualized, and felt on the stage, in the dance, and in the everyday? In the last two decades scholarship by Josephine Lee, Karen Shimakawa and Yutian Wong—just to name a few—have underscored the intersections of performance and dance as central to the understanding of Asian America. This roundtable builds upon their work by locating how scholars, artists, and activists challenge and make possible coalitions in these highly collaborative and embodied fields. Rosemary Candelario discusses Eiko Otake’s Remembering Fukushima: Art and Conversation at the Cathedral as a way to open up consideration of transnational Asian American anti-nuclear and environmental actions. Mana Hayakawa will discuss “a peace about life: dancing with Parkinson’s,” a multi-age and multi-ability dance choreographed by Claudine Naganuma. She will address the challenges of approaching disability from an intersectional lens. Cynthia Ling Lee will discuss her performative works, “Lost Chinatowns” and “Mixing Waters,” which link the historical othering of Asian bodies to current-day Islamophobia and anti-Latinx xenophobia in the US. Thao P. Nguyen will discuss coalition praxis and the politics of solidarity in the production of Marigold & Lavender, a multi-medium project bringing together Día de Muertos and Transgender Remembrance Day. Lorenzo Perillo focuses on the intersections of popular culture and Hip Hop to situate recent Asian American performances of protest and solidarity with African American communities.