Intro: Asian Amer. Performance

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

How is “performance” a significant lens and paradigm for understanding the historical and cultural production of “Asian America”? And what does “performance” as creative expression, critical inquiry, and public engagement, offer for Asian/American politics and consciousness? Asian American Performance surveys the performing body and Asian racialization through the lens of performance studies, theater, and media. Students will examine performance as it encompasses plays and staged performances, experimental performance, performance poetry, film and television, social media, activism, and the everyday. Students will gain a critical understanding of performance, as theory and art, and be introduced to key themes and issues in Asian American performance studies, like immigration and exclusion, abjection, yellow face, orientalism, disidentification, hypersexuality, gender, and sexuality. The course covers autobiographical solo shows such as Byron Yee’s Paper Son (1997) and Kristina Wong’s Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (2013); musical productions like Flower Drum Song (1961) and Allegiance (2012); experimental and/or activist performers like Yoko Ono, Techching Hsieh, Yayoi Kusama, Tina Takemoto, Emma Sulkowicz; and what might be ascribed the everyday encounters with social media influencers, video games, athletic sporting events, and muk bang videos.