Posts tagged Peril
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.
Emerging Writers Festival and this week
May 30th
I spoke about Peril at a panel today titled “The Revolution will be downloaded”. Rachel Hills talked about using the web to promote yourself and interconnect with people, and Angela Meyer talked about her cultural blog literary-minded. James Stuart talked about New Media and really was the only one who used multimedia in a creative way to make interactive art work with words, sound and three dimensional graphics. It made me realise that I should pay a little bit more attention to my blog if I want to utilise it properly.
Avoliketera
This week I have had some exciting project possibilities come my way. Kit Lazaroo has generously offered to assist dramaturgy work on Silence with me over a year or more to develop the script further. And Simon Charles a very talented composer wants to collaborate with me on an opera- another multi year project. Even though I thought I would concentrate more on novel writing these projects still resonate and excite me even more. In both these projects Kit and Simon want to explore the artistic possibilities of expressing Buddhism, Kit in the theatrical dramatic sense, Simon in the musical. And I? In my novel the lady of the realm I am exploring the novel form as a cyclic and linear experience, and meditating on the heart sutra which coincidentally my sangha group is also looking at. Or maybe it’s not a coincidence. The heart sutra is a central text in Buddhism and I read it at my grandfather’s funeral in 1996. His last words were “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” referring to how we go beyond notions of life and death to reach nirvana, the other shore.
Peril news
Jan 30th
Peril number 6 “Passing failing” has been released. It is an asian-australian arts and culture on line magazine that I have the privilege of working with a number of talented people on. Check it out at www.peril.com.au
Issue 7 is looking for contributors and for once Peril can pay people thanks to the generosity of the Australian Arts Council. Again check it out at www.peril.com.au
Growing peril
Dec 27th
Peril had incorporated in September and got it’s first grant from the Australia council of the arts!
Peril is also helping out the casula powerhouse with it’s writing Asia program. Very happy about this peril is growing wings! Also I got into the doctorate at uws. I’ll be working with nicholas jose and gail jones on my next project. This is subject to me getting a masters which I’ve been told will be at the end of january. The other shore has had kathleen look over it and it’s looking good so I am hopeful for it. The new year is looking busy…
free at last- almost
Apr 15th
I wrote the 80 word “intention to submit” statement for my masters in creative writing today- free at last- almost! I’ve found the journey really interesting, without Kathleen Fallon I would have quit all together. I have learnt that I can write academic discourse in english literature at postgraduate level and I’ve read a lot of interesting texts as well. The creative process for my novella has been a bit painful, the gestation period was long and it was an effort to write. But in the process I’ve learnt about layering my drafts and playing with voices in the text so it has been useful.
Silence was workshopped and redrafted over the weekend which was intense but also a great process lead by Melanie Beddie the dramaturg and Gorkem Acaroglu the director. With their input the play is now more stylised and less naturalistic which is fantastic! Bring on the hungry ghosts I say (with the aid of fog machine and projections).
So now I have some head space for the Footscray Arts residency and my next new work. I’m reading Women Native Other by Trinh Minh Ha which has a great prologue about story telling and ancestry that has resonance for my next theatrical work.
Peril’s inaugural Board meeting is happening in August- more excitement with three people flying in from interstate. I’m thrilled that Peril is getting bigger- and maybe well get funding soon- applications TBA.
