APAture Live

Express Yourself/ Multidisciplinary Performance

6:59 pm - We're back at Space 180 (180 Capp St. between 16th and 17th Streets) tonight for "Express Yourself," a multidisciplinary performance night.

It doesn't say so on the website, but I think Sam, or Ellen, told me that tonight is specifically LGBT performers. Not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, having all queer stuff in one night gives the queer community a chance to rally around one particular event at APAture, and outreach can go farther out into the community than just Asians. Everybody can make an effort to show up tonight, instead of frittering themselves out over several different events and missing each other. It's that much-vaunted term "community-building," live, in the flesh.

On the other hand, it's Monday night, which is a ghetto in itself. Community arts ghetto night. And having all LGBT stuff in one night gives normative folks the opp to just ignore the whole thing. And it probably strips the other nights of queer artists to a much greater degree than otherwise ... although I'm sure not all queer performers are slotted into tonight's thing.

I just asked Ellen and she told me that someone had curated this night specifically. I didn't catch the name (Elokin) but it'll come out when they start, I'm sure. So that makes sense, although my concerns still hold.

7:08 - Thinking back now, we never separated queer artists out, and always had heavy queer presence in APAture. The most obvious one the first year was the GAPA dance troupe, which was, hands down, one of the crowd-pleasin'est gigs of that entire, 14-hour day. But we also had Las Cucas (which, to be honest, was basically a Latino band. Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa's Pinay half was the APAture hookup), filmmaker Stuart Gaffney, poet Truong Tran, a video from Sta-Prest (which also was hooked up to APAture through half a Pinay), and a buncha others which I would break out and list for you only I'm feeling uncomfortably ghettoizing now myself. (YOU are a queer and YOU are a queer, and YOU and YOU!)

So this is new, is what I'm sayin'. We'll see how it turns out.

Since I'm at KSW I'm going to post as I go.

7:20 - Ellen opens it up. Who has attended KSW and APAture before? Usual KSW pitch. Shout out to sponsors. Thanks Elokin Cheung  for putting this together.

Elokin: thanks blah blah blah. Intros The Rice Kings, drag king troupe.

7:23 - The Rice Kings

Three Drag Kings, one in ordinary blazer and pants and t-shirt with red scarf (Dang Kinki). Play sound: voiceover of a fashion show. This dude is a model. We hear what he's thinking in voice over. Asian women from Asia are great; Asian American women are crazy.

Tito Ray-Ray Pansit On My Face wearing "classic dirty uncle" attire. Leather jacket and vest, cords, fedora, green shirt. Pinoy accent. We hear him thinking. Aggression toward white man with Asian woman.

Big Daddy wearing cheesy hip-hop outfit, badly put together. He's from the M.I.A. school of "fashion." He's thinking: have you ever been mistaken for a tourist? Oh, he's a hapa, cuz he hate da whiteness inside him too.

That was interesting. Mugging to a voice over. Now they're arguing (in real voice) over who's the best cook. Wait, that was it? Wow. That started out interesting, then ... ended.

7:29 - Elokin intros Amir El-Chidiac for a poetry reading.

Okay, we start with pseudo-sensuality, which takes a creepy turn when he remembers the bars of his crib in his lover's arms. Next poem: battle "I know what it's like to be an orphan" ... something about white American dreams. This is better, despite the clichés. "A New Quarterback". Gaza strip. (Ai ya. Just observe that for a second: Gaza Strip. ... Okay, we're back.) Interesting. He has a guy actually being a quarterback on the Gaza strip. Not bad.

Last pome: when you go home google Mahmoud Daweesh (?) one of the most important Arab poets and just passed away this month. "Wayne's Words": poem addressed to "Mahmoud" and evokes him. Oh, somebody's been reading too much Lorca. Maybe it's Mahmoud. Derivative, but lovely.

You can purchase his work in the last Intergenerational Writer's Lab chapbook.

7:37 - Elokin intros Celeste Chan. Usual stuff: MFA, performed here and there. Oct. 5 in Hapa Hard Core

Celeste: trying to channel her Jewish mother. Child abuse story in her mother's voice. Her father beats her up. (Celeste is wearing bright red lipstick and a black, empire waist dress; that's my schtick. She has a rich, low voice that keeps breaking, either because that's how it sounds or because she's nervous. The effect, however, is that she sounds like she's gonna cry at any moment.) Wow, that ended abruptly. And wasn't very interesting. Undifferentiated memories with no arc.

Poem: Ai ya. "press ear to wood ..." What The Fuck Is Wrong With Articles? Dude, articles GIVE ENGLISH ITS RHYTHMS. Damn. Start dropping articles, and you might as well stop busting, as far as I'm concerned.

7:42 Elokin intros Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, queer mixed Sri Lankan high femme powerhouse. Much published, much organized.

Leah: She's been helping med students visualize female genitalia. "Hurricane" spoken word. Uh oh, sensual spoken word about "my lover." Turns it into a discussion of how she learns to speak Tamil. I wanted to call you "lover" in my language. Hmmm.

Here's her hapa family pome. Not the cool family like Obama's. Tells folks' story: working class Mom on Fulbright. Dad is queer. Meet in London 1969. Fucking on a table/a lava bed of empire. Cool. White mamas who are racist. Absentee Daddy. Actually, sounds a little like Obama's family. This isn't a story of resistance, except it is. Those children grow up. To be as untamable as our hair. Typical hapa empowerment structure. But good piece.

Brown Best Friend Femme one: (She's wearing a hot pink flower over her left ear. That's awesome.) Very sweet poem. Liked it.

7:55 - Pause to seat the people standing in the back. Switch it up to nonliterary part of the night. Shout out to folks in audience, who did building work for the queer community. Thanks to Trinity Ordona, who teaches at City College. Also Madeleine Lim.

Intros Amar Puri, who does, among other things, stilt walking. Bet he gets some mileage off of that line at bars.

7:58 - Amar - is in drag. Hot pink polka dots. Dances down the aisle, to a keyboard, where he starts to play, despite the crackliness of the amplification. That is a pretty boy there. Starts singing soul. Nice voice too. Song deteriorates into deliberate chaos, and moves to next song. He should be standing, and not hiding behind the bangs of his wig. And work harder on the voice. Slight oversouling, without the cream. And the mic needs to be closer to him.

Okay, I'm bored. Dude, you don't start out all dynamic, and then make us aware that are butts are going numb in these stupid folding chairs. Get up and DO SOMETHING! Ai ya, now he's singing "My Baby Just Cares for Me" but his voice is actually overwhelmed by the keyboard. Also rushing the tempo a bit. Yeah, a mic with a long arm and a standing position would improve this performance by about 50%.

He gets a lot of love, though. Alright, I give him love, too.

8:07 - Amber Field, queer Korean adoptee, specializes in world fusion music. She's standing right behind me. I'm switching to another screen for a sec.

Oh my, she has a digeridoo. You buzz that thing, girl. (We had an awesome digeridoo musician second APAture. Didn't know there was a basis for comparison, didja?) She's throwing some vocal cries into this. Is that what it's supposed to sound like? It's like when you're playing a kazoo and you don't quite engage the "zoo" part and you can kinda tell it's your voice. That wasn't all that exciting. She learned that in India? Huh?

Now she's reading poetry/spoken word (?). "Boom is the sound of capitalism." "I was the product of capitalism." Blames outsiders for convincing women to sell their babies. Blames the war in Korea on the US. Lotsa unpoetic blame here. Blames the patriarchy. Boom. Ai ya "I am the mirror for your projections." Ai ya "ching chong chinaboy" yeah, she said it. "And we should all be able to freely choose our own identities." Zzzzzz ... *snort* huh? What? Identity what?

Oh. My. God. Her last piece is played on a TAMBOURINE. And she's singing. Mothers ... Fathers ... Thank god she can't enunciate well enough for me to understand what she's really singing. You know, songs generally have structure. I mean, musical structure. Doesn't matter what culture you're in, there's actually a structure. You know, where there's a shape to it? Oh ... never mind.

8:18 - NaR is the first queer Arab hip hop crew. Intros different members. Means "fire" in Arabic.

Awesome. Butch girl and gay boy. Damn, they're cute. "I'm the definition of a Semite." They're a little stiff. Rhymes good so far. Okay, I declare a moratorium on the word "colonialism" in hip hop. Find another way to say it, dewds. It's like dropping an f-bomb at a formal dinner. Stops the conversation. Girl can rap. Boy can move. Oh ... okay ... you educate us about the misnomer "anti-Semite." Yeah, don't worry about the beat. You just let it trail away while you lecture us. It's cool.

The beats are not beast enough. And they need some more practice and confidence, but ladies and gents, we might have something here. Oh, I don't know about the obvious rhymes. Work more on that flow. Yeah. I'll hold my breath a bit. No, no, no, you don't need to bust out your research! That's not hip hop! Are you gonna cite your sources now? Want me to get my MLA handbook? Argh! If you wanna give a speech, then give a damn speech!

Another moratoriam on "orientalism," "capitalism," oh, yeah, and on rhyming "isms" based on the "ism" part. ... You know, the lecturing thing could work out really good, but they gotta tighten it up a bit. They're both still hella cute.

Mangoes with Chili, some sort of tour.

8:35 - Closing performance with Rice Kings.

Lip-syncing boy band. I do not know what language this is. They're really engaging and cute, if not terribly convincing. Get a lot of love for ripping off their red overalls and/or bathrobe. Now blowing bubbles. Am I missing a reference here?

8:49 - Aaaaand we're done. In, out, and on with our lives.

10:13 - That was actually tightly curated, and they kept the performers to their time. Well done.

Act Out/ Performance Night

8:20 - Intersection for the Arts. What?

This is a general mixed performance night, much more in line with traditional APAtureness, where all disciplines are mixed in together. Tonight is also Sam Chanse's performance. Sam has a longer history with APAture at this point than I do. And she's the featured artist in performance.

8:22 - Ellen Oh welcomes us. Day Seven. Year Ten. Upcoming events. Upcoming programs. Thanks sponsors. You know the drill by now, right? Intros Jack, committee member. Bar is open.

8:25 - Jack - welcome. Pitch for the rest of APAture and t-shirts and booze.

Philip Huang (writer) born in Taipei, lives in Berkeley. Model turned actress. (Plus, he's a kickass writer. Seriously. One of his readings actually brought me to tears. Me!

8:26 - Philip - sneaks out the curtain. In character. Asks for cup of tea. Khalil brings it and sits down next to him. Giving us character: nervous giggly diva. Making a lot of our sipping his tea. Licking the cup, spilling it all over himself and licking it off. Shy giggling again: it's delicious. How's everyone doing tonight? Welcome my fellow Asians and Filipinos. Big laugh. Turning 33 next week. Prime number, lucky year. Bittersweet: year that Jesus committed suicide. Maybe accidental overdose. Love that you can interpret the Bible any way you want.

Went to Israel last year. Had so much fun in Israel got AIDS twice. Talking back and forth with woman in the audience. Wanted to have a three-way with an Arab and a Jew on top of the Wailing Wall, while shooting an M16. Didn't get to do that. Did get to shoot at the wall and accidentally shot a child, but it was a girl.

Did meet with a rabbi, Kabbalah. He shared the unspoken name of God with Philip. He'll share it wiht us tonight. Makes sucking sound while pointing at it his dick.

Did an "internment" at an animal shelter. Internship. I'm not Japanese. Khalil Solomon everyone! They're community activists; want to promote awareness about a health issue. Khalil is the black Alicia Keys. Khalil gets a guitar.

(This stuff is so offensive it would be funny, but timing is a little off.)

Singing that Beyonce song "to the left, everything you own in the goiter to the left" singing about a goiter. Ties a scarf around his throat to look like a huge goiter. Goes off on a rant about the goiter. Goiters are treatable. Tells story about having a goiter in the Philippines when he was ten. Falls into sobs. Khalil starts singing goiter song. Philip runs around doing interpretive dance. Goes into the audience and makes people touch the goiter.

Philip: can we hold hands? We can end goiters tonight.

Is that the end? That was weird, Philip. WTF? Wow, that was a weird little trip through Philip's freaky fuckin' mind.

8:42 - Jack: does a bit of a spiel about KSW and APAture. Intros Irene Fay Duller. Founding member of 8th Wonder, more stuff that I can't keep up with. New piece from her called "Skywalk" about finding home. All stories are true.

Irene: has a group of performers with her. using black boxes a set. Four characters. Girl talking about climbing a mountain. Boy talking about going back to find his roots. Girl talking about being out there and having a dream of ancestors.

(This is very Bindlestiff-style. Dance, movement together with monologue, identity stuff. Dream stuff.)

Now they're interacting. Texting in the Philippines a different language. We're a clever and creative people. Made up conflict between a guy and a girl about whether or not text language is good.

Going into a poor area to observe poor people. Leave your first worldliness. Guy gets grossed out. Describes the garbage by listing it. No one should live here. You are so first world. Monologue about his feelings.

Dancing bell-bedecked woman comes out. Music. She has a boa of fake flowers. Gives it to a girl. (Okay, so this is an esxperience of traveling back to the motherland, having dreams; failing to have the experience you wanted.) Takes the flowers away. Girl wakes up. Gets excited about the dream. She came to me, the river goddess. In touch with the earth. She's been researching this stuff.

(Damn, she's got some sharp things to say about roots searches. Could be a little tighter. It's kind of slow anyway and the performances aren't paced right.) They go out to the forest to collect the things the goddess told her in the dream. Her offering doesn't work out the way she wants it to. This was her test.

The mountain climbing part. Three of them describing the scene. Trying to keep up with the effortless guides. List of things back home they're thinking about. The grant proposal. Rice terraces full of blues music. Singing a canon. Goddess comes back out and dances. On the peak.

Wow, that was interesting. I'd like to see the whole piece when it's finished. I always wondered what the next step for Bindlestiff-trained writers and performers was gonna be. There it is. That is definitely a development.

9:06 - Jack: all artists are volunteering tonight. Please go talk to them and ask them when they're performing next.

Intro dance number. Rogel Camba. Danced on MTV show. Funkanometry. "Dark Identity" piece.

Rogel: group of six dancers all in black. Interpretive hip hop dance, to Portishead. If I'd been a dancer when I was sixteen and hiding in my room, listening to the Smiths, this is what I would have choreographed.

Okay it's picking up now. Aaannd we're back to agonized. Aaaannd we're picking up again. Each dancer gets a spotlight in one of these segments. Oh, this is the sexy segment. Good thing there's three boys and three girls! Feeling each other up and freeze-framing. Now we're writhing on the floor. Yeah, let's end with that ... with one of the boys doing one of the girls doggy style. Oh, it was Rogel doing the girl doggy style. Ladeez? Whatcha think?

9:22 - We're still in intermission. Pireeni stole the rest of my burrito. Mark stole the rest of my chips before the performance even started. Somebody opened the door so I can tell it's cooling off outside.

9:31 - Jack's back: people are milling, trying to find seats. Somebody gets into my personal space. Get out of my personal space! Jack intros Truthisreal TIR. www.truthisreal.com.

Sam comes out. Doing spoken word act in a black hoodie. Wisdom is knowledge. Pumping herself up. Pome about her grandmother. Called "Grandmother." (Hitting it all: "rice," "gold mountain," "sour plums," "other," "mango")

Now she's doing another character. Suzette Law, doing a weird voice. She's a volunteer for APAture festival, Professor Dariotis forces us to be here*. Conscription. Suzette has to be personal emcee for some girl, I mean woman. Intros Samantha Chanse. New stuff.

Now she's doing herself. HOW META!

Opening remarks: I am unworthy. Wasting other people's time. Quick to pass judgment on others. Unsuitable for employment. Quick to anger and to remorse. Bad at finances. Sometimes I laugh at babies ... falling. I hate you all but most of all I hate myself.

9:47 - Doing her dad? Calling somebody. His son is in medical school and coming home for a visit. Making a reservation with a friend at a restaurant. Daughter is Suzette, creative writing major at SFSU. Oh! Dig at "community organizers." Yeah, she said it.

Back to Suzette. Presenting the next piece while Sam prepares. Brings Goh Nakamura up. Childrens' book by Sam as a child, called "Fright Night," projected onto screen. (This is a real book Sam made as a kid, actually. She forced me to read it at her birthday party when she was drunk.) Suzette reading Sam's notes. It's a metaphor for bifurcated identity. The monsters coming out of the cemetery are people of color trying to invade white communities. Goh is playing atmospheric woo-woo music in background. Dismantling white hegemony.

9:58 - Sam playing Sam as very insecure. Pulls in bit from stand up about her last name. I like this bit, or would like it if I hadn't seen it twenty times already. Okay, not her fault. White kids with Down Syndrome. "Bitch you think too much Syndrome" thing. (This is interesting. She's playing it really slowly ... maybe b/c it's a "theater piece" and not a standup routine. It's really working. What's the lesson here? Slow it down.) Ooo. She added a weird little incestuous element to the end.

Back to the Dad. He's on the phone again. Same guy. Wants to add one more person to the table. The guy he's talking to is the chef. How messed up China is. They do Chinese things better in SF than in China.

10:08 - Sam's back. She's hapa, multiracial. Grew up in New York, there weren't that many of us. Wrote a song about her experiences being mixed (with Goh backing her up.) Song called "hapahapahapahapahapa." This'll get better with time. Food metaphors. Ouch.

Suzette again: there's real stuff going on in the world. We're going to have the first multiracial president and nobody talks about it. And all she's talking about is her identity.

Dad's back: calling him again. Why don't you bring a friend? Slight change of plans. His son's bringing "a friend" who's not a girl, so I can't go. I'm not comfortable with it. They don't want to get married so you can still go.

Sam again, doing her stand up thing about her Dad. Suzette: theres only one more thing left. Thanks to Intersection and volunteers, and people in light and sound booth, and audience. One more thing she's gonna do.

Dad's back: talking to Suzette. Arguing about not getting over Chris' five year relationship.

10:24 - Lots of applause. That was really good. Best thing I've seen so far at APAture. And she didn't pay me to say that.

Jack: last words.

And we're done.

* ETA: "Professor Dariotis" is Wei Ming, who wasn't "Professor" yet when we started APAture, but was a lecturer at SF State. She has stocked APAture's volunteer corps with her students since the beginning, by requiring them to do community service, and then telling them that volunteering at APAture would do the trick. Nice, huh? The first hired APAture coordinator, Andrew Amorao, was one of Wei Ming's students, and nearly every APAture intern has been too. Wei Ming hooked us up with the Filipino fraternity (can't remember the call letters), who did security for us the first three years. For scale, just realize that during the first few years, we required about 80 volunteers for the entire festival. I can't understate how key Wei Ming's professorly arm-twisting has been to the success of the festival.