Arts&Entertainment ASIAN AMERICAN PRESS
Week of April 10 • 2009
The Movies UPTOWN THEATRE 2906 Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis 612-825-6128 April 10-16, 2009 SHALL WE KISS - NR 12:30-2:45-5:00-7:15-9:30 (Daily)
MIDNIGHT MOVIE Saturday, April 11, 2009 200 MOTELS - R
LAGOON THEATER 1320 Lagoon Ave. Minneapolis 612-825-6129 ADVENTURELAND - R 2:20-4:40-7:00-9:40 (Daily) No 7:00 Thu
GOMORRH - NR 2:10-5:10-8:15 (Daily)
MYSTERIES PITTSBURGH - R 2:40-5-7:30-10 (Daily) No 7:30 Wed
SERBIS - R 2:00-7:30
DUPLICITY - PG-13 4:20-9:30 (Daily - No shows Tues)
HANDEL’S MESSIAH - NR 2:00-7:30 (Tuesday Only) SUNSHINE CLEANING - R 2:30-4:50-7:20-9:50 (Daily)
EDINA CINEMA 3911 W. 50th St., Edina 651-649-4416 (hotline) SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE - R 2:30-5:30-8:15 (Daily) EVERLASTING MOMENTS - NR 2:00-5:00-7:45 (Daily) THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD-PG 2:20-4:40-7:00-9:15 (Daily) THE CLASS - PG-13 2:10-5:10-8:00 (Daily)
Hmong photography becomes The Wolf Totem art and exploration of identity By Misha Jameson, Erica Rasmussen and Anthony Sauer The Metropolitan State University Third Floor Gallery presents, “Saib Kuv,” which translates to “Watch me”, or “See the Hmong in me.” This exhibit features a collection of digitally manipulated photographic portraits coupled with poetry and prose by emerging Hmong-American artists. The show was organized by the local nonprofit, In Progress, which provides opportunities for marginalized young people to develop their skills as storytellers, artists and leaders through the use of digital media. The works in the show are surprisingly sophisticated, considering that many of artists are still high school students. Yeeleng Vue, 17, is a St. Paul Central High School senior and volunteers at In Progress. Yee, as he is called by friends, has one work on display in Saib Kuv: “Effectuate the Constellation,” a digitally manipulated photograph composed from three original images. Ye e i s i n t e r e s t e d i n color combinations, and contrast. His work attempts to capture chance moments and then blend them into a thoughtfully composed image. Though the work on display is made of three
Reflections from Maniechan Xiong – saib Kuv (Watch Me) exhibit.
Beautiful Day by Mainou Vue in the saib Kuv (Watch Me) exhibit in the Metro State Library Gallery - St. Paul campus, April 16-July 24. separate exposures, Yee took over 75 photographs for this work alone. “You never know what you’ll get,” said Yee, noting that the piece is meant to illustrate the bond he feels with the natural world, closer to trees and green places than to skyscrapers and sidewalks. Yee’s interest in art was first inspired by a music i n s t r u c t o r. H e i s a l s o interested in music, rapping, mixing, and beat making. Music and exposure to
Taiwanese soprano to perform in doctoral candidate recital The public is invited to enjoy a recital of Hsiao-Chien Chou, a doctoral candidate in Voice Performance in University of Minnesota School of Music. The performance will be held on April 15, 5:45 p.m. in the Lloyd Ultan Recital Hall, Ferguson Hall, University of Minnesota, 2106 - 4th Street S., Minneapolis. Ms. Chou started her singing journey at a young age in 1990, by joining a choir in Taipei. Since then she has performed with the choir in Taiwan’s National Concert Hall and
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traveled to countries such as United States, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, and Singapore. She came to the United States in 1999 to pursue her degrees in voice performance. She received a master degree from University of Miami, where she won Honorable Mention in the University of Miami Co ncerto Competition and was awarded Provost Scholarship to attend a summer vocal program in Austria. Ms. Chou is a winner of 2009 TAAMN Li-Huey Lai Memorial Scholarship.
Hsiao-Chien Chou, a doctoral candidate in Voice Performance in the U of M School of Music.
photographic works made by his friends pushed Yee into studying digital imaging. He plans to continue making art, and is now moving towards filmmaking and animation. He recently completed his first animated work and likes that filmmaking combines all of the elements he likes in art, including music, images, and digital manipulation. Yee feels that Saib Kuv is about giving young Hmong people a chance to share their vision for what Hmong leaders could be. He said there aren’t enough Hmong role-models for young people, and that he hopes this show will make their community more visible. Another artist in the show, Kao Choua, started with In Progress as a volunteer and used the studio to make art for a summer. Kris Sorensen, the executive director at the time, gave her a Photoshop tutorial and she has been working independently ever since. Kao said she started asking herself who she was at age 15, mainly because Hmong history was not taught in her school. She wanted to tell her parents’ stories. “When I felt that my family’s stories were being lost, I started making videos,” Kao said. “I wanted to capture my family’s experiences through art,” said Kao. For the work in this exhibition, Kao said she use some of her parents’ old photographs to tell family stories. “I had a plan, but also I’d go along with what came my way,” she added. Building on her identity and finding commonalities are the aspects of art-making that Kao appreciates most, and she will continue making art in the future. “I’m working on a film about Hmong women. People tend to categorize or stereotype them,” she said. The project involves interviewing her mother, grandmother and niece. “Through the video I’m trying to show them as individuals,” she added. “Everyone’s different.” Sai Thao began studying media arts in school at age 13 (18 years ago), and has worked with In Progress since 1995. “I started in video then moved to photography, and fell in love with it,” said Thao. When she began, photography meant film and darkroom work. Though she uses primarily digital
SAIB KUV
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This novel book, holds breaks new conferences ground in a n d the literature symposiums of China. on the topic, Ordinarily, and even has when one rip-offs of thinks of the book. Chinese There are literary two editions tradition, written by one turns to authors who the Imperial have pirated p e r i o d o f A Book Review by the name and China from the theme 2 1 1 B . C . Richard Kagan, Ph.D. u n d e r t h e to 1911 title of “Wolf A.D. The Totem” part great writers and artists two. Film rights have been o f C h i n e s e t r a d i t i o n sold to “Lord of the Rings” overshadow any of the director Peter Jackson. 20th century creative It is successful, in works. Although they vary part, because its story in theme, they essentially line is totally absorbing glorify the Han Chinese – basically man vs. wolves, and their contributions and yet man dependent to the art of a great on wolves. The drama civilization. is the dual discussion of Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem how the Han Chinese are is an epic psychological greatly prejudiced toward and political novel about the Mongols, and how the lives of the Mongols the government’s policies and their destruction by the result in the desertification Chinese state. The author’s o f M o n g o l i a – t h e main theme is the roles of subsequent destruction of nature in Mongolia – the the land, and the culture symbiotic relationships of the inhabitants. For among the wolves, the some Chinese, the book is gazelles, the marmots, the just a national geographic people, and the grasslands. type of narrative about The lynchpins of this wolves, their habitat, their ecological structure are the instincts, and their great wolves: “Without them strategic powers. here would have been no But, Jiang Rong makes it Genghis Khan, and no clear in a postscript that is Mongols.” . not included in the Penguin Jiang Rong portrays edition, that it is also a the life in Mongolia as a call for a strong response ceaseless battle. He creates to China’s exploitation of a fantastic description of Mongolia. The Penguin the wolves hunting and edition does not provide killing gazelles, sheep, full information on the horses, and even their own author. He wrote under kind. But this is not for a pseudonym. His real gore alone. The killing has name is Lu Jiamin. He was a strategy and a purpose arrested during the military all of its own. Without the response to Beijing’s wolves and their predatory Tiananmen protest on June ability there would be 4, 1989. no grasslands and no He was accused of Mongols being an “active counter Jiang Rong’s writing revolutionary.” He spent a is not only dramatic but year and a half in prison. He is historical as well. He knew he could not write recasts the history of the under his own name. It Mongols. He openly rejects was published in China in the Han Chinese view that 2004. But it was not until the nomads are barbarian, several years later that his backward, savage, and real identity was known. culturally inferior. Bilgee, This novel has attracted the major Mongol leader the attention of millions of and hero of his story, readers, and hundreds of often expresses the anger critics. It is a significant and criticism of the Han part of our global cultural Chinese. “But,” says experience. It can transport Bilgee,” you’ll never find the reader into an empathy that mentioned in books with the all the peoples written by the Chinese!” of the world who face The story line is semi- the extinction of their autobiographical. The ecological balance and author had been sent to the loss of their spiritual the countryside as a young identity. In many ways, man during the Cultural it extends its meaning to Revolution universal to herd problems sheep and and not live with the just to the Mongols issue of the in Inner loss of the Mongolia. grasslands The purpose as a way of this rural of life. experience Students was to of China, make him along with understand readers of the lives of modern the working culture, class and to should socialize read this t h e r u r a l Author: Jiang Rong book now. folk into the Before S o c i a l i s t Penguin, April 2008 even the system memories of Mao Tse-tung and of the past can no longer the Chinese Communist be understood. Party. Instead, he became Richard Kagan, Ph.D. more socialized into the is a Professor Emeritus Mongolian system of of Hamline University in values and spirituality. Saint Paul, Minnesota. The book became an He served as East Asia instant success, selling Coordinator, and Chair of millions of copies in the History Department. China, and being translated He has worked and traveled into more than two dozen extensively in Asia. He languages. In 2007, it won earned his doctoral degree the Man Asian Literary in Asian History from the Prize. Since then, it has University of Pennsylvania been acclaimed as a great in 1969. He is a consultant literary achievement. It is on trade with Access included in Wikipeida, and Asia, Inc. and has written one can read it on Kindle. extensively on East Asian There is a literary industry trade, history, politics and that writes about the human rights issues. n