Hate-fueled attacks on Asian Americans have spiked as much as 150% over the previous year, even as overall hate crimes have declined.
Responding to this unprecedented string of attacks against Asian Americans is the focus of the next episode of Crucial Connections, Collaboraction Theatre’s live, interactive, monthly online talk show, Thursday, March 18 at 8 p.m. CT.
Collaboraction’s next episode of Crucial Connections will be devoted to hate attacks against Asian Americans. Prominent Chicago storyteller Dr. Ada Cheng (left) is guest host with special guest Rohan Zhou-Lee, founder of the Blasian March (right).
Special guest host Dr. Ada Cheng, a prominent Chicago storyteller, educator, storytelling show producer, facilitator and speaker, will join co-hosts Anthony Moseley, Artistic Director of Collaboraction, and Dr. Marcus Robinson, the company’s Executive Director, to lead a live discussion about the increase in violence and rhetoric against the Asian-American community. Joining the conversation is Chicago-based dancer, writer and activist Rohan Zhou-Lee.
The show will kick-off with a screening of Cheng’s seven-minute short film A Letter to My Former Self, which premiered as part of Collaboraction’s 2020 PEACEBOOK Festival and tells the story about a college professor’s response to a young Asian American student who endured a racist incident related to Covid-19.
The conversation will then explore the former president’s rhetoric blaming China for Covid-19, and how it spurred scapegoating of Asian Americans by ordinary people angered by the economic and social impact of the pandemic.
Collaboraction, Chicago’s theater for social change, produces and presents Crucial Connections live via Zoom on the third Thursday of every month. The 90-minute show brings together social justice warriors, artists and community residents for provocative, entertaining and radically inclusive discussion around different themes about life in a post-Covid world and the reshaping of the human experience.
Watch Dr. Ada Cheng in her PEACEBOOK 2020 short film A Letter to My Former Self.
Crucial Connections is free to watch, but registration is required to receive the Zoom invitation that allows audience members to ask questions via live video or chat. Register now at collaboraction.org/crucial-connections.
Following the show, the March episode of Crucial Connections will be posted on the Together Network, Collaboraction’s new member-based virtual platform. The Together Network offers unlimited access to the Collaboraction’s deep list of social justice programming for as little as $5 a month while providing steady financial support for the company and its artists. To subscribe, visit collaboraction.org/together-network.
Learn more about Collaboraction at collaboraction.org, follow the company on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, or call the Collaboraction box office, (312) 226-9633.
About the guests
Dr. Ada Cheng is a prominent Chicago storyteller, educator, storytelling show producer, facilitator and speaker. She has been a frequent featured artist at Collaboraction, most recently with her original short film A Letter to My Younger Self as part of the company’s 2020 PEACEBOOK Festival. Her collaborative project with the National Cambodian Heritage Museum, Oral History in Action: Integrating Storytelling and Community Engagement, received the 2019 Asian Giving Circle grant. Their joint project, Storytelling, Healing and Resistance in the Age of the Pandemic, received the same grant in 2020. Cheng is a board member of the Chinese American Museum in Chicago, an artistic associate with American Blues Theater, and the Education and Outreach Specialist with the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. For more, visit renegadeadacheng.com.
Rohan Zhou-Lee (They/Siya/祂 (Tā) is a Chicago-based dancer, writer and activist. In the fall of 2020, Zhou-Lee founded the Blasian March, a solidarity movement for Black, Asian and Blasian [mixed] communities through education on parallel struggles with racial injustice and mutual celebration. Stage credits include a soloist role in the Off-Broadway revival of Over Here! The Musical and West Side Story (New Bedford Festival Theatre) and The Bluebird from Sleeping Beauty (Victoria Ballet Theatre). They also trained at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and Ruth Page Center For the Arts. Their short act play, The Soldier’s Home, was produced in 2015 by Circa Pintig, Chicago’s premiere Filipino theatre company. They hold a BA in Ethnomusicology from Northwestern University.
About Collaboraction
Collaboraction, Chicago’s theater for social change, collaborates with a diverse community of Chicagoans, artists and community activists to create original theatrical experiences that cultivate dialogue and action around the city’s most critical social issues.
Looking ahead, Collaboraction’s staff, board, and company members are planning three short work performing arts festivals in 2021: The Light, a summer festival showcasing Chicago artists 21 and under; Encounter Englewood, a new video fest created by and showcasing Englewood artists/activists; and the 6th Annual PEACEBOOK, Collaboraction’s fall festival of new theater, music, dance and spoken word about peace. All three festivals will be produced either live, onstage or as a virtual video fest.
Meanwhile, Collaboraction’s member-supported Together Network presents exclusive virtual content like Becoming: Unlearning White Supremacy, a live web show for all people looking to be active anti-racists (first Tuesday of every month at 6 p.m. CT), and Crucial Connections, a live, interactive talk show that brings social justice warriors, artists and community residents together for crucial conversations (third Thursday of every month, 8 p.m. CT).
Since its founding in 1996, Collaboraction has pushed artistic boundaries working with more than 3,000 artists to bring more than 60 productions and events to over 150,000 audience members. Collaboraction partnered with the Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks program for five straight years cultivating relationships and theater in Englewood, Austin and Hermosa through the Crime Scene, PEACEBOOK and Encounter tours.
Collaboraction has been acknowledged for innovation and inclusivity by using theater as a tool for social change with numerous awards including, most recently, a 2020 Foster Innovation Award from Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), the 2020 Multi-Racial Unity Award from the First Unitarian Church - Chicago, a 2018 Stand For the Arts Award from Comcast, and an Otto Award from New York’s Castillo Theatre.
Collaboraction is supported by The Chicago Community Trust, Find Your Light Foundation, Illinois Arts Council Agency - a state agency, Illinois Humanities, Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, Marc and Jeanne Malnati Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation. A CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events partially supports Collaboraction with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
For more information, visit collaboraction.org, or follow the company on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, or call the Collaboraction box office, (312) 226-9633.