Jia Wu – Castro Valley, CA  Artistic Director of Jia Wu Dance Theater

Drawing on deeply personal experiences, Mama/Medea explores Wu’s hybrid identities through the classical Greek figure of Medea: Eastern, Woman, Mother, Sorceress, Exotic Other. Wu’s celebrated performance aesthetic draws on traditional Chinese theater and contemporary dance, combining raw emotion, music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics, and her work has been featured in the Pina Bausch International Tanzfest and other fourteen countries .  For Wu, a Chinese woman living in the United States, “diaspora” is a lived term, evoking evolutions of forms (dance, Chinese Opera) and self.  Mama/Medea powerfully examines the constant translations of self, one’s language and even authenticity, all of which must be negotiated in the constant present.

2013 Festival Weekend One Artist

“Mama/Madea”

Traveling the literary terrain of Euripedes and performance landscape of her own body Ms Wu hope to foster intercultural exchange and understanding, while countering mainstream representations of dance forms, race, and gender.   Ms Wu is inspired by Medea’s struggle to be accepted and understood by “men,” and by another culture.  Ms Wu will combine exquisite costume, mysterious masks, martial arts with sword, contemporary dance and traditional music. A unique vision of the struggles of a Chinese Immigrant, Experimental Artist, Mother and Citizen will be produced.

Peking opera is a form of traditional Chinese theater which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. It arose in the late 18th century and became fully developed by the mid-19 century. At the beginning of establishment of Communist China in 1949, China is alike an old and tattered house in which all basic [...]