Success!!!

REFUGEE NATION @ La Peña Cultural Center was a success! Thanks to the hard work of the La Peña staff and Laotian community organizers, we filled the house! Opening night was SOLD OUT! They had to pull chairs out and volunteers were standing room only. Thank goodness because it was a benefit for Legacies of War and Center for Lao studies, both worthy organizations that have had a significant impact on the development of our show. We first met Channapha of Legacies at the CLS conference three years ago in Elgin IL - and tat's when it all began! Without either organization, REFUGEE NATION would not be. Saturday matinee was filled with the beautiful youthful faces of our workshop students from SEAYL (South East Asian Youth Leadership for Richmond) and LASR (Laotian American Student Representatives of UC Berkeley) and even some of the elders who said they'd never leave Richmond. And amongst the crowd we had people drive up from Los Angeles, new friends who had somehow heard of the show, drove in from as far away as Sacramento, Modesto, and San Jose! And the Legacies team came to town for the benefit and held our national steering committee meeting, they came from Alaska, New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Boston, Seattle, and all over the country! Sarah of La Peña said the crowd was practically all new for La Peña. Yeah - we do what we can. Thanks everybody for your support. It was hard to leave the Bay Area, but we had to. It was hard to say goodbye to Sarah and Lakin and to our hosts Toni and Phoumy. Man Toni is a good cook - we were so spoiled we had homemade Kao pun and Pho and payapa salad almost everyday! We don't cook like that a home that's for sure! Where are all the pictures you ask? There comin' when you send them in folks! We only have a few from the nights of the shows, because well, we were so beat after each performance that we could only stand a pose for the cameras. So all you folks who were playing paparatzi and taking pictures - post them here for us or email them to us so we can add them to this blog. Thanks everyone for a successful run in Berkeley. As you can guess, people are asking when we're coming back, well, that up to you folks. Talk to your local presenters to see if we can make it happen. We want to come back, we need to go back! More photos to come, promise...

East Bay KPFA Tri-Fecta

Blam! Blam! Blam! One after another Leilani and Ova hitting home runs on the radio thanks to KPFA public supported radio station in Berkeley, CA. We were fortunate enough to make friends and build buzz for such an amazing show that the houses were packed for the performances. All three performances at La Pena Cultural Center were filled and thanks a big part to the KPFA radio spots. Take a listen by clicking the link to the radio shows of our IN THE NEWS section.

Listen carefully and you'll notice both Leilani and I have very strained voices due to that fact that we were SICK! Yep, exhausted from rehearsing, workshops and driving around town all the while full of anxiety that we needed to get more word out so audiences could come to fill the seats at the performances. It all pays off. Next time...I'm swigging my anti-sickness immune boost drinks and medicines before I start off.

Big hugs and applause go out to Weyland Southon of Hard Knock Radio for hitting us up with a great chat three way with Channapha, Leilani and myself. Wayie Ly and Gina "G" Hotta of Apex Express for the continual support expressing the Asian-American experience. Love to the Mitch J. and Amy Allison of The Morning Show for the morning wake-up to boost the word about Refugee Nation. It was such a pleasure to do the radio both on a prepared and improvised status. The skills that these talented host and producers have to make the news go round cannot be matched. Until our next radio spot comes a word of advice. YOU have a voice...so use it!

The Feast!

This past Tuesday Khammany had the brilliant idea of getting folks together for a meal at the best Lao Restaurant in Oakland - Vientien(e) Cafe! The dinner brought together almost everyone helping with REFUGEE NATION marking a gathering of most of our Northern Cal team. It couldn't have come at a better moment. Just when we were starting to get tired, our team came together for a magnificent feast expertly ordered by our Bay area community leaders Khammany with help from Toni an Phoumy there, amazing hosts who have housed and fed us. Sarah Guerra of La Peña Cultural Center was there along with Lakine Valdez our Light Board Operator. And the recent arrivals Marie-Reine, TeAda's Operations Manager, Jen our TD, and Paul Berrera our video collaborator, and local Director Alex Torres, making up the biggest our tour team we've ever had. What a joy, everything is going so well! And new friends and supporters like Weyland (who had us on air Wednesday - check out the links to the right) and others. Man we need the juice of everyone's energy. It's kept us going all week through tech and dress rehearsals to know we have the support of the amazing people at the feast! And to all you supporters of this blog too - we wanted to share the joy with you. Here are some pictures of the meal!! Wish us luck tomorrow with our opening night and Legacies of War Benefit!

KPFA's Hard Knock Radio

Weyland Southon is the MAN! Thanks to the hip-hop connection via Jeff Chang whom we met at Intersections V in Amherst just a few weeks ago we were invited to share a piece of our show on the radio on KPFA 94.1 Berkeley. Check out the link as Weyland our hapa-host of Samoan-Chinese ancestery and new found Lao-food critic of Hard Knocked Radio quiz Channapha Khamvongsa of Legacies of War and Leilani and I of Refugee Nation about our programs this weekend. It was great to talk, share and promote the upcoming events. Listen to it online and click the link under IN THE NEWS section.

This is hell week for us in the lingo of theater production and we have our full team steaming ahead with Marie-Reine at the helm of marketing and promoting, Jen Cleary tech-savvy magician with the confines of La Pena Cultural Center performance space, Paul Berrera at the MacBook Pro video editing station and Alex Torres director at large to finalize this outcome of Refugee Nation. These creative people have come together to make the upcoming NoCal debut of our show a success. Leilani and I forge forward with fine-tuning the piece to make it even more dramatic, more humorous and more alive. We even have a special local young guest artist in Junnida Siribounthong, teen-traditional Lao dancer extra-ordinaire whom will collaborate with us in the final scene of our show.

Across the Bay in San Francisco we have our partner organization Legacies of War prepping for a national steering committee meeting this weekend. Many of our friends and colleagues we've made through this amazing organization will be arriving on Thursday from all different parts of the nation: Seattle, Boston, Pennsylvania, DC to attend the performance as well as discuss the future of Legacies of War.

Emotional weekend...by Leilani

It started yesterday. We headed over to UC Berkeley to do a workshop for the Laotian American Student Representatives. Lucky for us LASR also runs a mentorship program with High School students from SEAYL so we got to spend more time with some of our students earlier this week. The workshop went smoothly despite the early morning start on a Saturday. We decided to challenge this group to dig deep and explore the mythic moments of their lives, mining for stories from their ancestral memories. We got to hear many powerful stories. Still, as the workshop was coming to a close, I wasn't sure if we had got through, if we had communicated why we were here and what we do. So when we sat down to discuss our workshop and who we were, I was searching for a way to explain how important their stories were and why we needed them to come see our show. It somehow came to me. I asked how many of them have seen their story, the story of Laotians on stage live before? One Hmong student said she did when she was in school a long time ago. Point is, she remembered that she had. None of the others had. I explained, for me it was seeing Jude Narita perform her one woman show that told me wow, Asian women can do this work, if we learn to write and produce our own work. The experience of seeing your story on stage after being forgotten, never being seen on TV or Film or mainstream anything, the experience of seeing what is real to you live on stage, is an important and empowering experience. And more than just trying to sell a ticket, that is why we need to see them in this audience. We don't want these youth to miss that experience. We don't want this community to miss that experience. And I thank these folks for reminding me why we do what we do.

Then today, we joined our hosts Phoumy and Toni, and our community reps Vinya, Khammany, and Mali at a meeting of the Laotian elders. I'll let Ova tell you more about that meeting since it happened mostly in Lao. But as I sat there watching and listening and looking at the room we were in, I started getting emotional again. This room has been built for these meetings. Over 30 years perhaps of community meetings have happened here. These elders have been doing community work for many years. These are also the people our show is about. They too need to be in our audience. If only so they can see how we honor their experiences and the issues they are addressing here today. I got emotional, even in my silent observation.