Interview in the Age 21 May 2010
May 21st
I was interviewed by Robin Usher, and the interview appeared in today’s edition of The Age. I think he did a good job in capturing the reasons why I wrote Silence.
The Asian-Australian scene
May 14th
Yesterday I was interviewed by The Age in the leadup to my play Silence’s third season. Robin Usher, The Age’s Senior Theatre Editor, asked me whether there was a thriving Vietnamese-Australian arts scene that he didn’t know about. After I named a few names and activities he said he thought it was thriving – so I thought I’d share with you some of the other stuff out there. Chi Vu is a playwright who wrote Vietnam: A Psychic Journey, which is in the PEN Anthology of Australian Literature. I think it’s fabulous that Vietnamese-Australian writing is considered Australian nowadays. Nam Le of course has appeared in Australian Long Stories along with the usual suspects – again a great sign. Dominic Duc Golding wrote Shrimp which was on the VCE list and his work in progress is Umbilical. Hoang Tran Nguyen is a visual artist and there is Van Rudd who is half Viet half Aussie who is an agent de provacteur as well as being Kevin Rudd’s nephew. There is an outfit called Her Productions which is for young Vietnamese-Australian women who used to run the radio show Voicebox on 3CR and now have moved into multimedia and film. And the actresses for Silence include HaiHa Le (Bed of Roses, City Homicide etc) Diana Nguyen (Miss Saigon) and Ai Diem Le as well as Gabrielle Chan from Sydney (Home Song Stories). They have all incidentally been in one season of Silence or another.
I also attended Owen Leong’s exhibition “Birthmark”. It features photos of young Asian-Australians with bogong moths transformed into their faces and the effect is beautiful and startling. It includes portraits of Tom Cho, Chi Vu, HaiHa Le and Lian Low (the current prose editor of Peril). Owen’s exhibition is on at Anna Pappas Gallery until June.
public presentations by Hoa
Apr 24th
Upcoming public presentations by me:
Thursday 29 April at Monash Caulfield Building H Room 1.16 at the Vietnam Inheritance Symposium
I’m presenting a paper on Vietnamese-Australian diasporic writing- namely Nam Le, Dominic Huc Golding and myself. For more details view:
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/psi/vietnam/
Saturday 29th May at the Emerging Writers Festival, Melbourne Town Hall, Yarra Room at 11am
I will be on a panel called “The gentle art of persuasion” and will be talking about how I constructed the play ‘Silence”from six interviews with Vietnamese-Australian women aged 23-65. For more information on the festival: www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au
Silence May 19-June 6 2010
Apr 12th
The next season of Silence for VCE students is at La Mama Courthouse from May 19-June 6. We are also doing a special perofrmance in Knox on June 10. Starring Gabrielle Chan, Ai Diem Le and Diana Nguyen it features bunraku puppetry by Penlope Bartlau and sound design by Simon Charles. 
Asian diasporic writing
Apr 10th
I’ve just given a seminar paper for my doctorate in creative writing. As well as reading out a sample from the novel I am working on “The Lady of the Realm” I also discussed Vietnamese diasporic writing and how it is a form of resistance against Western stereotypes about Vietnam. Vietnam and Vietnamese people are often portrayed as exotic beautiful and mysterious, passive or like the yellow peril- a form of orientalism – by Western authors. I’d like to think that Vietnamese-Australian (and Vietnamese-American, Vietnamese-French etc) writers write against these stereotypes and portray Vietnamese characters in more sophisticated way. For instance in Silence I wanted to portray the strength and the diversity of Vietnamese Australian women’s lives- I did not want to portray the stereotype of a Vietnamese outworker (Ma works in an office).
I met up with Michelle Cahill from Mascara magazine another asian-australian literary journal. We are hoping to do a joint event with Asialink and UWS. We talked about Asian diasporic writing and promoting that as a global world literature rather than just Asian-Australian writing. Knowing that you are part of a global movement helps transcend boundaries and genres not only in writers minds but readers minds as well.
The anthology “The Perfume River” will be released by UWA Press this month and contains writings on Vietnam by Vietnamese diasporic writers including Nam Le, Vincent Lam, Chi Vu and myself. I hope that it does well.
Vietnamese Writing anthology
Mar 30th
I’m one of the writers featured a new anthology of Vietnamese Australian writing “the Perfume River” edited by Catherine Cole. The story “The Daughters of Au Co” also features in a Western Sydney creative writing reader for secondary school students. Other writers in the anthology include Nam Le, Chi Vu and Vincent Lam.
“Silence” will also be coming out with Currency Press quite soon. The next VCE season is from May 19-June 6 2010 at La Mama Courthouse.
Silence is on the VCE list
Nov 27th
My play Silence is on the VCE list for year 11 and 12 students! It will be published with Currency Press in May 2010 and have another season at La Mama.
The run was successful in November 2009 even though I had to play Ba at the last minute. This at least gave me an insight about how difficult the part is to play.
Peril is having a launch at Asialink on Thursday December 3 at 7pm. Come along and be part of the fun!
reading at Literaturwerkstatt
Nov 6th
Did a reading at the literaturwerkstatt last night with Antje Strubel. It was an interesting discussion about communism, history and the role it plays in our respective works. I then had drinks with some people from the Australian Embassy, one of whom I’ll be meeting again on Friday to discuss my next Berlin visit in 2010. I have confirmed that I will be returning in the second week of June to do a video installation of ” i could be you” at the skupturen park in the centre of Berlin. I’m at the end of my residency now. Tonight I’m seeing a modern German rendition of Hamlet by the Deutsche Theatre – at least I know how it ends! And will be catching up with Pham Thi Hoai on Saturday the day before I go.
siegfried led by Simone Young
Nov 3rd
Went to Hamburg to visit a close friend- and saw a modern day production of Siegfried- the Wagner opera from the Ring Cycle led by Simone Young. It was brilliant! The first act was set in a psychiatric hospital, the second in a railway station, the third in the library (which could be read as his mind) and the fourth in a homeless shelter. The action was set in his mind, so the dragon was his mind projecting a monster onto another homeless man. The subconscious was represented by broken windows and forest, and the conscious by the front part of the stage where the “action” took place. It blew my mind- in a good way.
It reminded me of the artistic director’s statement for “Silence” which premiers when I get back on November 11. Penelope Bartlau and Wolf Heidecker are using the set of the house as a metaphor for the self, with the ghostly apparitions as subconscious possessions. I’ve seen a few tantalising pictures on facebook of the production (it’s been developed while I’ve been in Berlin) and it looks wonderful.
I’ve been writing additions to grant applications while I’ve been here as well as redrafting and writing my own work. I’m so grateful for the time- though there is only a week left.
poetry as living history
Oct 29th
I went to the 10th anniversary of lyrikline, an on line repository of poetry from 50 countries. Had the pleasure of hearing a speech from the President of Germany. More interesting was a speech and poetry by Lebogang Mashile from South Africa who talked about how poetry for black South Africans was an accessible living form- oral history and family poems are part of their culture which was devalued by the coloniser (I’m paraphrasing). She said its the voice of black women, and her stories and privilege is to be on TV or on radio so people can hear her words. It was truly inspiring. I also got to hear Aki Takase play who is a brilliant Japanese improviser and prepared piano player who is 60 and has the vigour and energy of someone much much younger.
In other networking news- myself, Archana Prassad, and Lady Gaby will be trialling a three way poetry reading in Australia, Berlin and India on December 6 (unfortunately midnight Australian time). Archana is the co-ordinator of Jaaga an artist collective gallery space in India which has its own portable building. I will be visiting Archana and Jaaga on my way to Dublin next year for my next residency in June 2010.
I did a reading at Wunderbar- Lady Gaby’s studio space which went down well. A good warmup for my Literaturwerkstatt reading on November 4 in Berlin.
