January 2019
Bunraku Ningyo Awakenings: A Performance by Kanroku and Mokugu-sha
Experience traditional Japanese puppet theatre in a rare performance outside of Japan by renowned bunraku ningyo performer Kanroku and his company, Mokugu-sha. Taking inspiration from antique bunraku puppets from the USC Libraries’ East Asian Library, Kanroku and Mokugu-sha will create a special piece for the USC community. The performance will explore the tension between social obligations and personal desire—a conflict at the heart of the bunraku repertoire—and highlight the expressive possibilities for storytelling with non-human puppets and creative experimentation by bunraku ningyo practitioners past, present, and future. Renowned Japanese bunraku ningyo puppeteer Kanroku studied at the National…
Find out more »February 2020
Contemporary Chinese Diasporic Fiction: Exploring and Exploding Identity
Reception and book signing to follow. ADMISSION: Admission is free. Reservations required. RSVP beginning Thursday, January 23, at 9 a.m. RSVP DESCRIPTION: Join us for a reading and conversation with four outstanding Chinese writers whose works upend the notion of a monolithic Chinese identity and uncover a much more complicated story about the diversity of Chinese diasporic experiences in America: 2017 National Book Award finalist Lisa Ko (The Leavers), crime-writer-turned-YA-author Ed Lin (David Tung Can’t Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets into an Ivy League…
Find out more »Seamless, A Play
Seamless: A Play about Japanese American Incarceration and the Afterlife of Historical Trauma Book signing and reception to follow. ADMISSION: Admission is free. Reservations required. RSVP beginning Monday, January 27, at 9 a.m. RSVP DESCRIPTION: Seamless revisits the Japanese American incarceration and dissolution of the American Dream during World War II, exploring the ways the past haunts the present. Written by USC professor Dorinne Kondo and published in her most recent book, Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity, the play examines the afterlife of…
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