Lenora Lee Dance
Reflections
SEP 8-11, 2011
Reflections is a new interdisciplinary work by Lenora Lee Dance in collaboration with Kei Lun Martial Arts & Enshin Karate, South San Francisco Dojo. It features media design by Olivia Ting, music by Francis Wong, videography by Ben Estabrook, and text by Genny Lim. The piece explores the experiences of creating community and a sense of place by succeeding generations in my family and community, beginning with my grandfather, who immigrated through Angel Island in 1922. In honoring my grandfather’s efforts to achieve dignity and self-realization in his time I also wish to address today’s challenges for Chinese men facing assimilationist pressures in our mainstream American culture. As such, this work is dedicated to three generations of men in the Lee family.
I am very excited about the opportunity to work with martial artists from Kei Lun Martial Arts and Enshin Karate, SSF Dojo in this next phase of storytelling. These artists bring a special perspective rooted in their ongoing practice that contributes to our community’s cultural integrity and provides insight into the relationship between movement and mind. The project also utilizes video projection to bring light to the intimacies of the martial arts forms and breath, making visible the dynamism and subtlety intrinsic to the forms. These forms will represent a symbolic language for struggle, identity, and a journey through emotional landscapes. In this way I hope that the piece will be a moving tribute to our forebears as well as a means toward healing in our communities during these complex times.
Reflectionsis presented through the CounterPULSE Artist Residency Commissioning Program, in partnership with Asian Improv aRts, API Cultural Center, Chinese Historical Society of America Museum, & Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.    |
Lenora Lee Dance
The mission of Lenora Lee Dance is to give artistic voice to the experiences of Asian Americans through interdisciplinary dance theater works.
Lenora Lee (artistic director, choreographer, dancer) is a native San Franciscan and has been creating and performing work since 1998. For the last 13 years she has been an integral part of the San Francisco and New York Asian American contemporary dance and creative music communities, as choreographer, dancer, and Managing Director of Asian American Dance Performances, as dancer and taiko artist with Gen Taiko, as Artistic Director for Lenora Lee Dance, as artist-in-residence at CounterPULSE, the Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Northern California, the Chinatown Beacon Center, and in the SFUSD, and as Project Manager for Asian Improv aRts. She has directed, choreographed, and produced her own works performing nationally and internationally.
Lenora’s projects have been sponsored by the Greater New York Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC), Mulberry Street Theater’s Ear to the Ground commissioning with generous support from the Jerome Foundation, CounterPULSE Artist Residency Commissioning Program, Lighting Artist in Dance Award, a program of Dancers’ Group, CA$H, a grants program administered by Theatre Bay Area in partnership with Dancers’ Group, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Performing Arts Assistance Program, Asian Improv aRts, Chinese Historical Society of America Museum, Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, Footloose Presents AIM: Artists in Motion, The Garage Resident Artist Workshop, and by Generous Individuals.