Spring 2010
| Internship (AAS 488) |
Join the Wang Center in a hands-on, three-credit (10 hours per week) internship implementing Asian and Asian American cultural programming, including performances, festivals, films, lectures, and much more. Interns are involved in every aspect of the programming process, from researching potential attendees, to sending out press releases, creating fliers, interacting with the public, and running the box office. Some evenings and weekends required. Flier »
To apply for the internship: Email a resume and cover letter explaining how the internship would benefit you to:
Sunita Mukhi,
Director of
Asian and Asian American Programming
Sunita.Mukhi@stonybrook.edu
| Performances |
February 25
Niyaz
The Iranian music group Niyaz blends modern electronica with Persian folk songs, medieval Persian poetry, and Turkish and South Asian Sufi mysticism and musical forms. The word niyaz means "yearning" in both Farsi, the language of Iran, and Urdu, a major language of northern India and Pakistan, a connection Niyaz explores to its fullest. Don’t miss this mesmerizing spiritual and musical performance. Flier »
Tickets:
$35 for VIP; $20 for general admission; $15 for seniors; $10 for students
20% discounts for groups of five or more.
Buy tickets online »
Thursday, February 25, 7:00 pm, Wang Theater
March 22
Kyogen: Comic Theater from Japan
Literally “mad words,” Kyogen originated during the samurai era and features humorous stories of daily life laced with biting social satire. Kyogen, the 600 year old Japanese classical comic theater, uses exuberant facial expressions, an extremely high level of vocal and physical control, stock characters, gentle humor, dialogue, and mime to celebrate and poke fun at humanity. This program is performed by the artists of the Yamamoto family, led by Yamamoto Noritoshi, designated as an Intangible Cultural Asset by the Japanese Government. The six-city North American tour of Yamamoto Kyogen Company is organized and produced by the Japan Society, New York, and is supported by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Co-sponsored with the Japan Center at Stony Brook. Flier »
Tickets:
$35 for VIP; $20 for general admission; $15 for seniors; $10 for students
20% discounts for groups of five or more.
Monday, March 22, 7:00 pm, Wang Theater
April 15
Wounds Unkissed
YaliniDream incorporates her unique blend of spoken word poetry, song, theater, and dance in a vigorous performance that speaks to the survival of spirit. Humorous and heart wrenching, the work explores how violence left unaddressed breeds more violence. YaliniDream travels this terrain through a hybrid form of dance that draws upon contemporary and classical South Asian forms as well as US Urban dance forms such as Popping, Hip Hop, and Experimental House. YaliniDream collaborates with Kiebpoli Calnek to integrate the aerial dance forms Corde Lisse & Silks. With live music.
Discussion follows. Flier »
Tickets:
$35 for VIP; $20 for general admission; $15 for seniors; $10 for students
20% discounts for groups of five or more.
Thursday, April 15, 7:00 pm, Wang Theater
| Lectures, Workshops & Cultural Events |
Buddhism Study & Practice Group
Please check our Web site for updates, room assignments, and possible date/time changes.
To receive our weekly newsletter, please send an email to buddhism@ic.sunsyb.edu.
January 17
One-Day "Zazenkai" with Sensei Issai Chizen
Ven. Issai Chizen Denton Sensei has been studying Buddhism for nearly 40 years. He is a Dharma successor of Ven. Mitsunen Kosho Nordstrom Roshi and a lineage holder in both Soto and Rinzai schools of Zen. In addition to being head priest and resident teacher at Wagyo-ji Zen Temple in Oceanside, NY, he has been the Executive Director and Head of liturgy and training at Zenshin Temple in Yonkers. His sangha group meets every Sunday morning at 8:30 am. Please wear comfortable clothing. Arrive early, by 9:00 am. Bring a cushion, towel, socks, and sweater. FREE FOR STUDENTS. $20 teacher's donation suggested for non-students. To register, email: haideelee@yahoo.com or call (631) 344-2062.
Sunday, January 17, 9:30 am to 4:00 pm, Room 101
Community Yoga with Elizabeth Heifferon
Tuesdays, 6:00 pm
Please join us for multi-level yoga classes (appropriate for beginners and more advanced students), designed to stretch and strengthen your body, increase your inner peace, and bring mind, body, and spirit into alignment. This is hatha yoga, meaning it incorporates the physical practices of yoga: asana (poses), pranayama (breath control), and meditation. Bring along a mat (if you have one) and an intention for positive change, and grow with us in the Wang Center gardens, as we explore the practice of yoga: the total mind-body workout that doesn't feel like a workout. Please wear comfortable clothing that you can move in and (if you can) bring a suggested donation of $5. Learn more about the instructor »
Flier »
For a complete schedule click here.
Tuesdays, 6:00 pm, Wang Center
February 27
Tzu-Chi Foundation New Year Blessing
Join the Tzu-Chi Foundation, an international non-profit founded in Taiwan, as it ushers in the Chinese New Year in a Buddhist ceremony. The Tzu-Chi Foundation was created in 1966, when its founder Dharma Master Cheng Yen determined that suffering in this world is rooted in material deprivation, spiritual poverty, and "lack of love for others” and created the foundation to combat these causes of suffering. Reception to follow. Flier »
Saturday, February 27, 2:30 pm, Wang Chapel
March 3
Bollywood Weddings
Lecture and Book Signing
Kavita Ramdya’s speaks about her book, Bollywood Weddings: Dating, Engagement, and Marriage in Hindu America, an anthropological study of Indian-American Hindus in the tri-state New York area. By interviewing twenty couples, Ramdya examines how this diasporic community negotiates between antiquated, Old World values such arranged marriage and modern, individualistic values such as love marriage. She finds that Bollywood culture’s fashionable aesthetic and symbolic representation of a modernised India became the method by which American-raised Indian Hindus negotiate two diametrically-opposed value sets: that of pre-modern India and mainstream America. Book signing to follow. Flier »
Wednesday, March 3,
12:50 pm, Wang Center
March 11
Beyond Bollywood and Broadway
Plays from the South Asian Diaspora by Neilesh Bose: Dramatic Readings and Discussion
Neilesh Bose hosts and discusses a series of dramatic readings from the plays in his edited volume Beyond Bollywood and Broadway. This anthology of 11 plays, from North America, the U.K., and South Africa, many published here for the first time, reveals the vibrant, cosmopolitan theatre of the South Asian diaspora. These original and provocative works explore the experience of diaspora by drawing on cultural references as diverse as classical Indian texts, adaptations of Shakespeare and Homer, current events, and world music, film, and dance. Book signing to follow. Flier »
Thursday, March 11, Wang Center
April 14
Pan-Asian Read-Aloud
Stories, performances, calligraphy, and workshops by Stony Brook students for young audiences. Co-sponsored with the Asian American Center Bridge.
Wednesday, April 14, 10:30 am, Wang Center
April 19–May 21
Imagining the Wang Center Exhibit
2010 PH Tuan Annual Wang Center Photography Contest
Contest is open to non-professional photographers only. The only visual criteria is that the Charles B. Wang Center Celebrating Asian & Asian American Cultures must be obvious in the photo.
High quality digital images only.
Color: shortest side minimum 2 megapixels (or at least a 2 megabyte photo.) Scans of stills are acceptable.
Color or black & white. Photos may be digitally altered or enhanced. EXIF data must be included. (EXIF is the original info on a digital photo that tells date, camera type, etc. If you don't know if it's included with your entry, we'll contact you if it's missing.) Photos may have been taken at any time, not only in the current year. Maximum of 15 submissions per photographer. Deadline: Friday, April 9, by midnight. Reception to announce winners: April 29, 7:00 pm. Flier »
| $400–1st Prize | $300–2nd Prize | $200–3rd Prize |
| New for 2010 | ||
| $250–People's Choice Award |
$100–Global Choice Award |
Send entries to wangphotocontest@gmail.com. Include full name and contact information, including address and phone number. If photo(s) are too large to be sent by email, upload to Guest Gallery at www.aasquared.org/gallery. All entries become the shared property of [AA]2, AA E-Zine, P.H. Tuan, Wang Center, and the photographers, and may be used for non-profit purposes by all parties
providing artist is given attribution under the Creative Commons By-NC-SA 3.0 License.
Questions? E-mail wangphotocontest@gmail.com or call (631) 632-4400 or (631) 831-6062. Co-sponsored by Wang Center architect P.H. Tuan, [AA]2 AA E-Zine, and Charles B. Wang Center Asian and Asian American Programs
Exhibit: April 19–May 21
Reception: Thursday, April 29, 7:00 pm, Wang Sculpture Garden
May 5
Who is Asia America? A Series of Performance Art Happenings
Through ritual and conceptual performances, human tableaus and sculptures, and live art, the Wang Center comes alive with a plethora of performance art "happenings" that explore and explode the complexity, wealth, diversity, humor, and nuanced musings about Asian American identity, history, and cultures.
Wednesday, May 5, 10:30 am, Wang Center
| Films |
February 11
Vincent Who?
Vincent Chin was a 27 year old Chinese American draftsman and celebrating his upcoming marriage in Detroit when he was attacked with baseball bats in 1982 by Ronald Ebens, a Chrysler supervisor and Michael Nitz, Ebens’ laid-off stepson. The fatal assault, motivated by anti-Japanese sentiment among autoworkers due to Japan’s successful entry into the United States automobile market, ended in Chin’s death and galvanized Asian and Asian Americans around the country to form a real community and movement. This documentary, inspired by a series of town hall meetings organized by Asian Pacific Americans for Progress on the 25th anniversary of the case, features interviews with the key players at the time, as well as a whole new generation of activists. Vincent Who? asks how far Asian Americans have come since then and how far they have yet to go.
Sgt. Robert Reeks of the Suffolk County Police Department provides an introduction to the state of hate crimes and their investigations in Suffolk County followed by the screening of Vincent Who? and discussion with director Curtis Chin. Flier » Watch trailer »
Producer and co-director Curtis Chin (featured in the documentary) is an award-winning writer and producer who has worked for ABC, NBC, Disney Channel, and more. As a community activist, he co-founded the Asian American Writers Workshop and Asian Pacific Americans for Progress. In 2008, he served on Barack Obama's Asian American Leadership Council where he participated in helping the campaign reach out to the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Since then, he has been invited to the White House twice, including for the 40th Anniversary of Stonewall and the signing of the White House Initiative on AAPI's. Curtis has also been active in LGBT rights, serving as the chair of the Gay Asian Pacific Islander Men of New York and as a member of API Equality in Los Angeles. He and his partner are one of the 18,000 couples officially married in California before Prop 8. He has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, in Newsweek, and other leading media.
February 11, 7:00 pm, Wang Theater
February 18
Flesh and Soul: Dance on Camera Films
Interpreting dance through cinema and cinema through dance, these six films from Asia and throughout the world take movement and the visual arts to new syncretic levels. Flier »
Thursday, February 18, 7:00 pm, Wang Center TheaterHorizon of Exile
Isabel Rocamora, UK/ Spain, 2007; 22m
Set to a soundtrack by Jivan Gasparyan and punctuated by voice testimonies of Iraqi exiles, Horizon employs choreographed gesture to consider issues of land and identity. The bodies betray a serene violence, travelling as though released from consciousness or gravity, falling and recuperating, haunted by an irrepressible past.
Mysteries of Nature
Dahci Ma, 2008, South Korea; 10m
Through beautiful and complex imagery, the film relies on contemporary technology and cinematic capture to illustrate the interdependence of the three realms, sky, earth, and human, which is a core trinity of Korean religion.
Caught in Paint
Rita Blitt, USA, 2003; 6m
A film that has been shown at over 60 film festivals nationally and has won seven awards, Caught in Paint is a film that brings together the painter Rita Blitt, choreographer David Parsons and his Parsons Dance Company, and photographer Lois Greenfield, in an inventive union of paint, dance and photography.
Reincarnation
Takeshi Kushida, Japan, 2008; 5m
Kaiji Moriyama performs in this mesmerizing film about the voluptuous moments during the fusion of a soul and a flesh.
La Vie Est Belle
Tristan Duhamel, France, 2004; 3.13m
A character of street-art painted by Jerome Mesnager is dancing and running on the walls of Paris, animated by Tristan Duhamel on a rock music of Delenda.
Bahudha
Ranan, India, 2006, 12m
Bahudha is originally a part of a series of Kathak duets interacting with other art forms that was first conceived, choreographed and performed by Debashree Bhattacharya and Vikram lyengar in January 2002. When performed on stage, the two dancers perform before projected images of themselves.
Discussion with Deirdre Towers, Artistic Director for The Dance Films Association, and Randy Thomas of The Center for Dance, Movement and Somatic Learning.
April 8
Autumn Gem
Autumn Gem is about the extraordinary life of the Chinese revolutionary heroine and women’s rights activist Qiu Jin (1875–1907). During the reign of the last dynasty in China, Qiu Jin boldly challenged traditional gender roles and demanded equal rights and opportunities for women. At a time when women’s lives were often marked by repressive practices such as footbinding, arranged marriages, and denial of education, she envisioned a future where women would free themselves from the confines of tradition and emerge as strong and active citizens of a new and modern nation, offering a fresh perspective on women in China by sharing the story of a figure known as the country’s first feminist. A short introduction on the making the film and historical background will be given by producer Rae Chang. Q&A to follow.
Flier »
Thursday, April 8, 4:00 pm, Wang Theater
April 19
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
Filmmaker Anders Østergaard's gripping documentary profiles the courageous efforts of a renegade band of Burmese reporters who, in the face of a repressive regime and media censorship, refuse to be silenced. Calling themselves the Democratic Voice of Burma (aka the Burma VJs), these fierce "video warriors" place themselves in peril as they smuggle footage documenting their government's abuses across the border and to the world at large.
(85 min., Burmese with English subtitles, 2008)
Free for students and Arts Council Members, $5 for all others
Part of the Port Jefferson Documentary Series by Greater Port Jefferson-Northern Brookhaven Arts Council. Watch trailer »
Monday, April 19, 7:00 pm, Wang Theater
April 26
Voices from El-Sayed
In an Israeli town where many cannot hear, Salim defies tradition by allowing his deaf son to receive a cochlear implant. This documentary traces the boy's adjustment to a life of sound and the varied reactions of his neighbors. With an artful eye, director Oded Adomi Leshem offers a fascinating glimpse into this close-knit Bedouin village, where the world's largest deaf community integrates seamlessly into daily life.
(75 min., Arabic/Hebrew with English subtitles, 2008)
Free for students and Arts Council Members, $5 for all others
Part of the Port Jefferson Documentary Series by Greater Port Jefferson-Northern Brookhaven Arts Council. Watch trailer »
Monday, April 26, 7:00 pm, Wang Theater
Events Archive
The Wang Center
is open to the public Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Guided
Tours for school groups and groups of 10 or more are available by appointment.
Stony Brook University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity educator and employer. If you need a disability-related accommodation, please call (631) 632-6320.
