"Within These Walls" & its sequel "Dreams of Flight"
Alum Olivia Ting (MFA, Art Practice) was responsible for the media design (complete with eight projectors!!) of an incredible new dance performance by Lenora Lee Dance at the Angel Island Immigration Center!
The show is an immersive, site-specific walk through dance performance where the audience can choose a character to follow their own skein of narrative. The piece is inspired by the poetry carvings left by would-be Chinese immigrants who were incarcerated there from 1910-1940s.
The show runs from May 4- May 19 at 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM. Tickets are available here!
The show is supported by Asian Improv aRts, API Cultural Center & Chinese Historical Society of America.
From the website:
Within These Walls (WTW) received a Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Production by the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Committee. Alongside Hien Huynh, one of the main cast members who played a character inspired by the life of Wong Gong Jue, received Outstanding Achievement in Performance by an Individual for his incredibly moving performance in the piece.
Lenora Lee Dance (LLD) celebrates its 12th Anniversary Season with the Re-Staging of the Award Winning Within These Walls (2017), and the World Premiere of its sequel Dreams of Flight, both site-responsive, immersive, multimedia dance works created for the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay, for three weekends 5/4 - 5/19/19. These works for 12 performers, integrating contemporary dance, video projection, recorded original music, and poetry, serve as a meditation on healing, resilience, and compassion.
Inspired by experiences of those detained and processed at the Station, Within These Walls & its sequel Dreams of Flight will transform and animate the historic Barracks as sites for remembrance, and in commemoration of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, speaking to the power of individuals and communities to transcend.
The pieces are dedicated to the over 100,000 Chinese who were detained and processed at the Station between 1910 - 1940 as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which tore families apart and resulted in a mass incarceration experience that forever stamps the experience of Chinese in America.
Audiences will journey within a labyrinth of rooms throughout the historic two story building experiencing intimate interactive environments, atapestry of movement, sound, poetry and film integrated on the surfacesinside and outside of the building, and within the walls.