CLUB O’ NOODLES
at NORTHWEST AUDITORIUM at UCLA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tram Le, Producer
(626) 627-6826
tramle21@yahoo.com
Contact: Uyen Huynh,
Club O’ Noodles Artistic Director
(714) 390-8936
u_huynh@hotmail.com
www.kicon.com/clubonoodles
FIRST-GENERATION VIETNAMESE AMERICANS AGED 58-72 YEARS OLD PERFORM THEIR STORIES OF (RE0CONSTRUCTING THEIR “HOMES” THROUGH THE WARS AND AFTER.
Los Angeles, CA (October 1, 2007) –Club O’Noodles presents an encore showcase of Finding Home (Que Huong Trong Toi), on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. at the Northwest Auditorium at the University of California, Los Angeles co-programmed with the Office of Residential Life. There will be a reception from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. and a Q&A session from 10:00 – 10:30 p.m. The event is FREE and open to the public.
FINDING HOME, curated by Tram Le and directed by Uyen Huynh (Club O’Noodles), is a remarkable and long overdue journey through the lives of the men and women who occupy silent spaces but whose stories carry deep truths and offers a candid glimpse into Vietnamese American history. Uncovering the stories and experiences of first-generation Vietnamese Americans ages 50 years and above, the FINDING HOME performance is the culmination of a 15-week story-telling workshop drawing from a range of performance art techniques. Finding Home features the stories and performances of Kathy Thuy Nguyen, Mong Hoi Do, Nguyen Van Quynh, Pho Thinh Truong, Tran Kim Chi, and Van Pham. The performance will be in Vietnamese with English subtitles. It will be followed by a Q&A discussion session with the performers, director, and curator.
Thirty years after the Fall of Saigon, some Vietnamese Americans who have grown up in the United States have been successful at finding venues to voice their personal experiences, while many older first-generation Vietnamese Americans, who experienced the war first hand, have yet to find a stage in which to tell their stories. Although some have chosen to remain silent, others have been ignored because of society’s fixation on youth culture or simply do not even know how to begin.
“For too long, others have been telling the stories of my parents’ and grandparents’ generation”, said Finding Home curator Tram Le, “but no one directly heard the voices of those people who lived through decades of strife and violence to eventually be here in America.
FINDING HOME gives voice to the participants by providing a space in which to present their experiences of “home” and feelings of being lost and/or displaced after being uprooted from their homeland. The performance allows them to share these stories and rich histories with the community.
Club O’ Noodles was founded in 1993 and has become one of the most recognizable names in the performing arts community. CO’N is a Vietnamese American theater troupe that celebrates the blend of Vietnamese and American culture through the following goals: to bridge the gap between Vietnamese and other communities as well as enriching the diversity of American culture through performance art, to promote the interest and support for performance art in the community through innovative and socially conscious work, and to create an environment that is nurturing and supportive of artist training and development of their craft and skills.
Loving support for this show has been given by the Asian American Studies Graduate Students Association (AASGSA) and the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA).
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