By Rick Shiomi, Mu Performing Arts Mu Performing Arts is in the third round of our Jerome New Performance Program.  This program features Mu collaborating with individual artists from fields other than playwriting to create new works from the outsider perspective.  It has been an amazing program for Mu because it has brought so many different artists to work with our company, offering them both exposure in how our company operates and Mu input from different artistic perspectives.  Some examples of this cross-pollination from the past have been Q & A by Juliana Pegues, a prominent spoken word artist and WTF by Katie Ka Vang, a poet and spoken word artist who is also an emerging actor.  The program itself is designed to initiate a number of projects with the end result being a fully staged production for the finalist.  In the first round there were initially seven projects. The finalist was Q & A but two other projects also received productions in the following season.  There were four projects in the second round, of which WTF was the finalist, produced in the 2010/11 season, and Four Destinies by Katie Hae Leo was produced this past October. In fact, John Olive, a local theater critic, wrote to us that he respected our company because we produced good work that was always “about something”. So, this program – which was supposed to produce two full productions – in fact ended up being so successful that we produced five projects.  In addition, the works not selected for full production continue to be developed by the other artists.

The selection of projects for production is a multi-step process.  Staged readings of each project at Mu’s New Eyes Festival are a critical step.  The four projects in this round will have their readings presented at the festival from December 1-10, 2011.  After New Eyes, two projects will be selected to continue in the program with the other two dropping out.

In this third round there is again a wide range of artists and work.  The four artists are Saymoukda Vongsay, a Laotian poet/spoken word artist; Eric Sharp, a Korean adoptee actor; Kayva Yang, a Chinese American dancer/choreographer; and Fres Thao, a Hmong rap and spoken word artist.  Saymoukda’s project portrays a futuristic post apocalyptic world set in Laos where the remaining humans battle zombies and cannibals.  It brings a cross of comic book and poetic vision to the theater. Eric’s piece looks at the world of Korean adoptees returning to Korean is search of their identity and place in the world.  In this world of chaotic experiences, his characters discover much about themselves.  Kayva uses dance as her medium of expression to look at the journey of women in migration, from her own family stories to a wider look at migrations from Asia to America.  Finally, Fres looks at time and the idea of a pair of Hmong American friends creating a time machine.

Whether in form or substance, these projects all reflect the individual visions of these artists within Mu’s theatrical framework.  It promises once again to stretch the boundaries of our work, engage more artists in their own particular artistic visions, and broaden our commitment to creating great works born of the arts, equality and justice from the heart of the Asian American experience.