Left to Right: Peekaboo (aka transcriptions) by Gary Sexton, Katie Quan by Kevin Yuen, Scott Oshiro Lenore Chinn, Lynn Huang by Mark Shigenaga, Shantré Pinkney, Erika Oba by David DeHart, Vida Kuang
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Dear Friends and Family,
As we move into the holiday season, we hope you and your loved ones find yourself surrounded by care, connection, and community.
This year, Asian Improv aRts turned 35 years old and we are building exciting, new directions for our next 35! Our team has been hard at work launching our inaugural fellowship program and after reviewing a very strong pool of applicants, we are thrilled to announce our 2023 AIR Fellows!
These artists moved us not only with their commitment to their respective crafts, but their commitment to creating change in their communities and beyond. Over the course of the next year, we will be supporting these leaders of the next generation in reaching the next level of their careers through one-on-one mentorship, coaching from multiple generations of AIR and affiliated artists, and production support for any projects.
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Erika Oba is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator based in the SF Bay Area. She has written works for jazz ensembles, chamber groups, dance, and theater. She is a practitioner of both piano and flute, performing with her own groups the Oba-Bastian-Steinkoler trio, Ends Meat’ Catastrophe Jazz Ensemble, Rice Kings, and The Sl(e)ight Ensemble. She has also performed with the Hitomi Oba Ensemble, Peter Apfelbaum's Sparkler, Jason Levis and Lisa Mezzacappa’s Duo B Experimental Band, and many other jazz and experimental bands in the Bay Area. As an artist, she is interested in exploring ritual, diasporic identities, and community through performance.
📸 Photo Credits: 1. Ben Tarquin, 2. David DeHart
🔗 LINKS
➡️ VIEW SAMPLES OF ERIKA'S WORK:
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Born and raised on Ramaytush Ohlone land (now known as San Francisco), Katie Quan (she/her) is a third generation Chinese American. She is a comic artist, community advocate, and educator. In 2020, Katie founded REALSOUL, an educational toolkit exploring Asian American history through art and discussion. Her comics and illustrations tell diverse stories of Asian American joy, struggle, solidarity, and intersectionality. Her work has been exhibited at SF Zinefest, Kearny Street Workshop, Asian American Women’s Artist Association and Chinese Historical Society of America. Today, she teaches Asian American Studies at City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University.
📸 Photo Credits: 1. Kevin Yuen, 2. courtesy of the artist
🔗 LINKS
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Lynn Huang is a dancer, writer, and GYROTONIC(R) trainer. Originally from New York City, she arrived in San Francisco via Beijing, where she studied ethnic minority dance at Minzu University of China on a Fulbright grant. Trained in ballet, modern, and Chinese dance, she holds a BA in English literature from Barnard College, and has danced with New York based HT Chen & Dancers, compani javedani, among others and has performed throughout the US and Beijing. She currently dances with Lenora Lee Dance.
📸 Photo Credits: 1. Christopher Luo, 2. Mark Shigenaga
🔗 LINKS
➡️ VIEW SAMPLES OF LYNN'S WORK:
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Peekaboo under the appellation transcriptions (they/them) is an experimental cellist, composer, multi-instrumentalist and youth educator situated on Ramaytush Ohlone land (SF). Their compositions are rooted in honoring the essence and spirit of Filipinx/Latinx past, present and future Queer ancestors, prioritizing sonic exploration practices towards the decolonization of Euro-centric structures embedded in youth and adult music education and performance. Their expressions' dive into the world of drag, theater and improvisational movement while continuously researching and performing within Bay Area institutions such as ABD Skywatchers, Counterpulse, (formerly) the STUD, Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, Joe Goode Annex, Brava Theater and more.
📸 Photo Credits: 1. courtesy of the artist, 2. Gary Sexton
🔗 LINKS
➡️ VIEW SAMPLES OF PEEKABOO'S WORK:
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Scott is a Bay Area based flutist, electronic musician, music researcher and technologist. As an African and Okinawan American, Scott’s work incorporates musical elements from his heritage and combines them with Jazz, Hip Hop and Electronic music. He is currently a PhD student at Stanford where he researches the intersection of quantum computing, music, and culture. He has received awards for his work on quantum audio signal processing and has been published in “Quantum Computer Music” for his work on quantum beat generation. Scott is currently developing a real-time quantum computer music improvisation generation system to create music for an album featuring Bay Area BIPOC artists.
📸 Photo Credits: 1. Titania Perez Osuna, 2. Lenore Chinn
🔗 LINKS
➡️ VIEW SAMPLES OF SCOTT'S WORK:
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Shantré Pinkney is a filmmaker, writer and photographer. She first began as a documentary photographer covering social issues in SF before joining American Zoetrope as a script reader. Her film work has screened at the Roxie, SomArts, Pan African Film Festival, African American Arts & Culture Complex, San Francisco Urban Film Festival and has won awards at Urban Media Makers and Montreal’s Art Color Digital Cinema International. As a lover of non-traditional and inquisitive storytelling, she seeks to raise dialogue between art and the audience by creating social impact films and photography. She runs a blog, Eat This Film, which features stories of people of color as central characters.
📸 Photo Credit: courtesy of the artist
🔗 LINKS
➡️ VIEW SAMPLES OF SHANTRÉ'S WORK:
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Vida Kuang is an artist based in unceded ancestral land of Ramaytush Ohlone peoples, San Francisco. She was raised by a Toisan matriarch and the streets of Chinatown. As a visual storyteller, her work centers on healing as experienced by Asian womxn, intergenerational joy, and experiences of poor/working class peoples. She believes storytelling is one of the most fundamental ways to decolonize hearts and minds for collective liberation. Inspired by movements led by women of color for racial, gender, and economic justice. Vida’s work addresses the complexities and intersections of survival, healing, and memory, utilizing illustration and mixed media as tools for storytelling.
📸 Photo Credit: courtesy of the artist
🔗 LINKS
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Once again, a huge welcome and congratulation to our 2023 AIR fellows! This year would not have been possible without your support and moving into 2023, we ask you to consider supporting this fellowship and other artistic programming that uplifts our communities with a donation. Thank you for being a part of the Asian Improv aRts family and we wish you and your loved ones a restful and joyous holiday season. |
Very sincerely yours,
Francis Wong, Co-Founder
Vinay Patel, Administrative Director
Lenora Lee, Project Manager
Johnny Huy Nguyen, Program Manager
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Click here to read see AIR's 2022 year in review! |
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Since 1987, Asian Improv aRts (AIR) has built a national cross-cultural, interdisciplinary community rooted in social justice and equity, advancing artists who create innovative works representing Asian and Asian American experiences. AIR’s impact has been far-reaching; building the strength, sustainability and national visibility of Asian American arts and culture, embedded in community-based work with an authentic Asian American voice and grounded in a social justice approach that has deep connections to BIPOC communities. Over its 35 years, AIR has produced more than 100 recordings of Asian American artists, chronicling a legacy of Asian artistic excellence in the U.S. and mentored many artists in their early stages, some of whom are now luminaries in their field, such as Vijay Iyer and Jen Shyu. Today, AIR continues this legacy supporting the next generation of artistic leaders in the field.
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