Choreographed and performed by Magnolia Yang Sao Yia
Costume design by Kuab Maiv Yaj (Koua Mai Yang)
Video design and documentation by Laichee Yang
Sound design by Magnolia Yang Sao Yia

June 8-11, 2017
New Works 4 Weeks
Red Eye Theater

PROGRAM NOTES

What are the ethics of engaging in memories in trauma? What does it mean to choreograph violence? Who is this work for? How can we begin to heal by acknowledging and tracing our histories? As a person coming from histories of displacement, statelessness, and exile, violence and trauma are the ghosts that keep us from being. Do you see yourself bleeding? We have to see the scars. We have to acknowledge the pain. For we have to be more than our pain, or our concealment of it. My work is an invitation to see. My work is an invitation to heal. My work is a call to our spirits. To our ancestors. Come back. Into our bodies. Come home. We’ve been waiting for you.

COLLABORATING ARTIST BIOS

Kuab Maiv Yaj (Koua Mai Yang) is a Hmong American female artist exploring Hmong identity in drawings, paintings and textiles. Yang’s work re-imagines traditional Hmong textiles and clothes to explore the tensions between the preservation of Hmong cultural objects and the reproduction of Hmong culture in America. She graduated with her BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and will be continuing her exploration of Hmong identity at the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis in the Masters of Fine Arts Program in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Social Practice Program.

Laichee Yang is an artist and designer based in the Twin Cities. As a Hmong American woman, her work pulls from autobiographical experiences, combining photography, video, installation, and performance to disclose moments of displacement or disconnect between images of daily experience, representation, and the cultural and social structures from which they come and reflect. Laichee studied fine arts and design at the University of Minnesota and is also the founder of studia h, a shared art making and gathering space centered around Hmong artists and community located on the East Side of Saint Paul, Minnesota.