Event sponsored by the Vietnamese American Studies Center (VASC), SFSU.

                                     Artwork: “Ruby Nien” by Vivian Le Tran

                                   

Writers:                                                                                            

le thi diem thuy (The Gangster We are All Looking For), Andrew Lam (“Tiger Soup”)

Monique T.D. Truong (The Book of Salt), Dao Strom (Grass Roof, Tin Roof),

Mai Piece (Spoken Word and Poetry)

Choreographer/ Modern Dancer:                              Performers:

Danny Nguyen (“Struggle to Flee”)                              Lan Tran (“Lone Star”)

Minh Tran (“The War Within”, “Simply Labor”)             Erin O’Brien (“Sometimes I Feel”) Emcee: Tony Bui (Movie Director of Three Seasons)           

Saturday, November 1st, 2003

6:30 PM - 10:00 PM   

San Francisco State University in McKenna Theater

1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94116

Phone: 415-338-2998

Admission: $10

CONTACT:

Media Consultant

Sonny Le; 510-757-9616

Event Director

Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Ph.D

ipelaud@sfsu.edu; 415-338-7592

“VIETNAMESE AMERICAN CHOREOGRAPHERS, WRITERS, and PERFORMERS”

A National Event Hosted by the Vietnamese American Studies Center at San Francisco State University 

Saturday, November 1, 2003

6:30 - 10:00 PM

McKenna Theatre at San Francisco State University

1600 Holloway Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94116

Phone:  415-338-2998

Admission:  $10

(Map & directions:http://www.sfsu.edu/~parking/text/tocampus.html) 

SUMMARY

Twenty-eight years after the end of the Vietnamese-American War, the United States is home to more than a million people of Vietnamese descent. For an historical occasion, established Vietnamese American writers, poets and performers from the East Coast and the West Coast will read and perform together. These artists highlight new voices from their communities, showing what it means to be Vietnamese in the United States. They bring forward an alternative writing of the Vietnam War and its aftermath.  

This remarkable festival will feature artists –choreography director Minh Tran, journalist and short story writer Andrew Lam, Lê Thi Diem Thúy, author of The Gangster We Are All Looking For, modern dance choreographer Danny Nguyen, Dao Strom, author of Grass Roof, Tin Roof, slam poet Mai Piece, performance artist Erin O’Brien, Monique T.D. Truong, author of The Book of Salt, performance artist Lan Tran, and this year’s emcee-Tony Bui, the director of the award winning film Three Seasons.

The Vietnamese American Studies Center gratefully acknowledges the support of Bank of America and the following foundations and nonprofit organizations: Zellerbach Family Foundation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, East Meets West Foundation, The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, and Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation. We would also like to thank our media sponsors Nha Magazine and The San Jose Mercury News-Viet Mercury, and event co-sponsors: Nguyen Qui Duc and KQED’s Pacific Time, University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim, Pacific Links Foundation, Association for Viet Arts, Vietnamese American Professionals Alliance, the Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project, United Vietnamese Americans, Pacific Bridge, Kearny Street Workshop, Asian American Theater Company, the Asian Student Association at San Francisco State University, and Diep Vuong.

Vietnamese American Studies Center

Asian American Studies

College of Ethnic Studies

1600 Holloway Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94132 

FEATURED ARTISTS 

East Coast West Coast II 

Bio. 

I. Artists 

Minh Tran

Minh Tran is artistic director of Minh Tran & Company in Portland, Oregon.  The Oregonian describes Tran as “the smoothest, silkiest, most fluid dancer in Portland.”  Born in Vietnam and trained at Saigon’s (Ho Chi Minh City) renown School of Performing Arts, Minh Tran immigrated to the United States in 1980 and has emerged as one of the Pacific Northwest’s finest choreographers and dancers. In addition to receiving dance training in classical Vietnamese opera in Vietnam, he earned a Master of Fine Arts in Dance at the University of Washington, and Bachelor of Science in Business Administration-Information System and Quantitative Analysis at Portland State University. As a dancer and choreographer, his work has been supported by the Regional Arts & Culture Council, UCLA’s Asian & Pacific Performance Exchange Initiative and New York’s Dance Theater Workshop Suitcase Fund’s Mekong Project with support from the Rockefeller Foundation.  Minh Tran’s choreography is remarkable for its fusion of traditional Asian technique with a contemporary sensibility, underscored by Tran’s unwavering commitment to breaking down cultural and racial barriers. His choreography has been performed in venues throughout West coast, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.  

Andrew Lam

Lam is an associate editor with the Pacific News Service, a short story writer, and a regular commentator on NPR.  He was born in Saigon, Vietnam and came to the U.S. when he was eleven years old.  Lam is the recipient of the Society of Professional Journalist Outstanding Young Journalist Award (1993), the Media Alliance Meritorious Award (1994), the World Affairs Council's Excellence in International Journalism Award (1992), the Rockefeller Fellowship at UCLA (1992), and the Asian American Journalist Association National Award (1993; 1995).  He was honored and profiled on KQED television in May 1996 during the Asian American heritage month.  He also won the John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University for the 2001-2002 academic year.. Lam is working on a short story collection. 

Lê thi diem thúy is the author of The Gangster We Are All Looking For ( Knopf, 2003).

Lê was born in Phan Thiet, South Vietnam.  She and her father fled Vietnam in 1978 by boat, eventually settling in Southern California.    She now lives in western Massachusetts.  Lê was born in 1972, the year remembered in its totality as the "red fiery summer" for the fierce attacks that scorched her countryside.  Her works, "Red Fiery Summer" (Mua He Do Lua), and "The Bodies Between Us" have been performed around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art.  Her story, "The Gangster We Are All Looking For," was featured in Best American Essays '97 (as well as the Best American Essays containing the "best of the best" from the past twelve volumes). Lê is the recipient of a Bridge Residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in California, and a "New Works for a New World" grant from the New World Theater at UMASS-Amherst and the New England Foundation for the Arts.

 

Danny Nguyen

Danny Nguyen is the first Vietnamese pioneer modern dancer, teacher and choreographer in the United States.  Danny Quynh Nguyen was born on January 12, 1964 in Saigon, Vietnam.  Eighteen years later in 1982, he escaped from Vietnam in an 8-meter boat with 47 other "boat people."  He was inspired by the dancing on television shows, such as Star Search and Dance Fever, and the movie Fame.  After one year in the U.S., he started his dance training at the San Francisco Ballet School, and then later at Berkeley City Ballet and Berkeley Ballet Arts as well as in Los Angeles and New York City.  Nguyen has also appeared in the repertories of: Rebecca Bobelles, David Dorfman, Molissa Fenley, Mark Taylor, Paul Taylor, Bill Young, and Tina Yuan.  Nguyen receive his B.F.A. in Dance, Performance, and Choreography at California Institute of The Arts and his M.F.A. in Dance, Performance, and Choreography at Mills College.  Paul Taylor recognized Danny Nguyen as one of the seven best creative choreographers in the Bay Area.  His company, Danny Nguyen Dancers and Musicians (DNDM), was formed in June 1999.  His developing choreographic style is a fusion of classical ballet, jazz, modern, and post-modern with his unique twist of Vietnamese culture and experience.  

Dao Strom

Dao Strom was born in 1973 in Saigon.  Her mother fled the country with her when she was a baby. Strom grew up in northern California and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.  She is the recipient of a James Michener fellowship and the Chicago Tribune/Nelson Algren Award.  She lives in Austin, Texas. She is the author of Grass Roof, Tin Roof published by Mariner Books (2003). 

Mai Piece

A group of young slam poets from Los Angeles explore the space and intersection between gender and ethnicity.  Members of Mai Piece include Taylur Hien, Nguyen Jenni Trang Le, and Anh Dao Le Do.  A few of Taylur Thu Hien Ngo's poems were published in literary journal Hop Luu. 

Erin O’Brien

Erin O’Brien identifies herself as a queer Vietnamese-Irish-American activist, writer, filmmaker and performance artist.  She graduated from UCSB and currently lives in Los Angeles. Erin has performed her solo work for enthusiastic audiences through Southern California at Highways theater in Santa Monica, David Henry Hwang Theater, the Japanese American National Museum, UCLA, University of California Santa Barbara, University of California Berkeley, California State University LA, and California State University Pomona.

Monique Truong

Monique T.D. Truong is author of The Book of Salt, published by Houghton Mifflin (2003).  A graduate of Yale University (B.A. in Literature 1990) and Columbia University School of Law (J. D. 1995), Truong's short fiction and essays have been published in Of Vietnam: Identities in Dialogue, Bold Words: A Century of Asian American Writing, An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature, Asian American Literature, and in journals such as UCLA's Amerasia and Yale University's The Vietnam Forum. She is a contributing co-editor of the anthology, Watermark: Vietnamese 2001American Poetry and Prose and an associate fiction editor of the Asian Pacific American Journal, a literary publication based in New York City. Truong received a Van Lier Fellowship from the Asian American Writers' Workshop, and was recently awarded a Lannan Foundation Writing Residency.  Truong has also been in residence at Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Fundacion Valparaiso. She lives in New York City. 

 

Lan Tran

Lan Tran’s childhood was highly influenced by Mexican-American culture. Originally from Los Angeles, she is a New York based writer/performer whose work was staged off-Broadway at the West End Theatre. She received fellowships from the Hedgebrook Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

II. Emcee

Tony Bui

Tony Bui is a writer, producer, and movie director.  Tony Bui made his feature film directorial debut with THREE SEASONS, winner of the Grand Jury Prize, the Audience Award, and the Best Cinematography Award at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, marking the only time in festival history in which the same film won both the Grand Jury and Audience Award.  The film was also selected for Official Competition at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival with Tony being the youngest director in Competition.  The film, featuring Harvey Keitel, received two Independent Spirit Award Nominations the following year, including Best First Film.  THREE SEASONS was the first American film to shoot entirely in Vietnam; and was released theatrically by USA Films/October Films.

Tony graduated from Loyola Marymount University with his short film YELLOW LOTUS, which screened at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival and won numerous festival awards nationally and internationally.  He received a Rockefeller nomination, and was invited to attend the Sundance Institute Screenwriting and Directing Labs at the age of 23.  More recently, Tony co-wrote and produced GREEN DRAGON with his brother, Timothy Bui who directed the film. GREEN DRAGON, starring Patrick Swayze and Forest Whitaker, premiered in Competition at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, and is a recipient of the 2001 Humanitas Award.  Tony has adapted for the screen Thomas Moran's THE WORLD I MADE FOR HER, for Industry Entertainment, and Helen Humphrey’s LEAVING EARTH, for Radical Media and producer Sarah Radclyffe.  Tony’s current project is writing and directing the feature film LAZARUS for Warner Bros with a fall 2003 shoot date.  Tony serves on the Board of Directors of Independent Feature Project West (IFP West) and currently resides in New York and Los Angeles.

III.Vietnamese American Studies Center (VASC)

Mai Nhung Le, Ph.D

Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Ph.D

Minh-Hoa Ta, Ed.D

Bac Hoai Tran, M.A. 

The VASC is committed to the promotion of Vietnamese American culture and scholarship.  Its main goal is to build bridges between American academic institutions, local Vietnamese American organizations and universities in Vietnam.  The Vietnamese American Studies Center at SFSU has the largest Vietnamese American curriculum in the country.  VASC has three full time professors specializing in Vietnamese American studies.  

Funds raised at this event will go to the Vietnamese American Studies Center at San Francisco State University for future projects designed to both entertain and convey to the community the VASC’s vision. 

Program organizer

Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Ph.D 

Volunteers (core group)

David Nguyen, Marguerite Nguyen, Mimi Nguyen, Khanh Mai, Minh Tsai, Venessa Phuong Cao, Sonny Le, Erin Khue Ninh, Danny Nguyen, Rebecca Khuu

 

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