(The working title is) HOW to Love an Asian Woman

written by Melissa Koh

with Vincent Chong, Juhyung Lee, Nicole Bazelais, Lisa Cisneros, Laura Green, and Sage Morgan-Hubbard

contact: Melissa Koh
submitted: 2/27/03

what i want to talk about is family.
this is about my mother, my sisters, and me.
this is because i met my grandmother once, in Korea when i was 14, before she passed away.
this is about my grandfather, my father.
this is about circles that never break.
this is about my sisters, strong in spirit stretching forever into faith.
this is because sharing blood means that you are a part of me.
this is for the lifetimes spent kindling the fire inside this one woman.
this is for centuries upon centuries of memory.
this is for all the ways we can forget in just one lifetime.
this is for acts of insanity committed in the name of something sacred.
this is for family.
this is my love.
this is for spirit.
this is for living.
this is love.

love letters.

How to Love an Asian Woman is a slam-poetry show.

Spoken-word slam-poetry is a performance art that I believe has the potential to change the world. Speak the truth. Because when done with a social conscience, with a true passion for words and performance, with honesty, and with talent and courage and sense of community...the power of one poet and one microphone armed with only her words is truly unlike any speech, concert, or play I have ever seen. Slam poetry (in case the reader has never seen a truly dynamic poetry slam) is a form of spoken word that synthesizes theatre, hip-hop, and spoken-word poetry into listener-palatable pieces that can incorporate anything from beatboxing to opera. Slam and spoken word have been gaining popularity in recent years, with Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam entering it's third season on HBO, as well as the nationwide-tour of some of the best spoken-word-slam-poets in the country-Mayda Del Valle, Lemon, Beau Sia included-yelling their souls out in (now on-Broadway) the "live" version of Def Poetry Jam.
Slam poetry is performed in 3-minute-long-poems for purposes of scoring, judges, and competition. How to Love will be a series of interlinked, slam-style poems that adapt the performance and writing aspects of slam. I envision incorporating more traditional theatre elements into this piece, such as lighting, blocking, props, and costumes. There are also pieces in How to Love that call for acoustic guitar, djembe, banjo, trombone, singing, and a variety of dance.

Please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Melissa Koh, and I am a senior Ethnic Studies concentrator with a focus in Performance Art, culminating the script of her year-long senior project-How to Love an Asian Woman-at the end of March. (I write more about the script-writing process in this section-please, I hope you will read on.) Although I have written, directed, and performed at Rites & Reason Theatre since 1998, it wasn't until last year that I had the honor of performing in my first Production Workshop play, GoldenChild, by David Henry Hwang. Last year's GoldenChild was the first time in over ten years that an Asian-American play had been cast and produced at Brown University, and even so, in the history of Brown University, it remains one of the few Asian-American plays, period. While I am not bitter (!), GoldenChild (and the ensuing Golden Lotus, at Rites & Reason last fall semester) sharply called my attention to the lack of Asian Americans in the history of Brown University theatre, and then to the subsequent lack between theatre and the Asian American community at Brown.
Why am I bringing this up? I am not trying to win a sympathy vote! No!
I am bringing this up in hopes that the reader of this proposal might thus understand my drive to write this collection of pieces. I believe...I have things to say that I have never seen or heard in any theatre performance before. I believe...that I would bring a unique, powerful show to the arts/theatre/activist/Asian/student/human community. I believe....no, I know! That this is a damn good show, and I'm not just saying that because I will be writing and performing in this myself!

I believe a week in the space would be an AMAZING opportunity to produce this show, for two big reasons: 1. resources, 2. the space.

1.) Money + Time = Heaven on Earth.
Typically, slam poets work for free, and receive zero (zero!) time in their performance space to prepare. One week would be an absolutely INCREDIBLE opportunity to do everything I have ever wanted to do with poetry! There would be live music! We could block dances! And poems! Adding elements of light, music, costume, and dance to the performance pieces would bring it even closer to a poetry show. Which brings me to what I cannot stress enough: I have never been in a poetry show with the monetary resources to pull the performance up to it's maximum potential. For example: one backdrop? Sewed from 4 bedsheets at 14.99 each? Out of the question! 2.) The student-friendly atmosphere.
PW is a wonderful space for many reasons: the stage, the size, the amazingly receptive communities that come out to support the productions. I would be thrilled to have the opportunity to work in this space.

I have had the honor to work with WORD! this 2002-2003 year, a new poetry performance group on campus (new = zero funding). We had our first show last fall, in which we just began to uncover the potential we have together as writers and performers. Since October, I have performed with them in a variety of venues, from the downtown stage at AS220, to the Chinese New Year Banquet, to conferences with 900-person audiences. To prepare for this production, I would want to invite them to collaborate on some key pieces with me. We would meet weekly between now and the second-to-last week of April, in two capacities: 1. Monday night workshops to foster community, self-reflection, material for poetry. 2. Individual or small-group meetings that be writing-workshops, and one-on-one direction. Presently, the show is loosely structured around three themes:

Part I: How to Love Your History
Part II: How to Love Your Family
Part III: How to Love-who do I love and why? (familial, friend, romantic)

I would like to ask WORD! Members to write around themes of love, family, and history, in order to spark a dialogue between voices and contextualize my own experiences. So, this will be a poetry show, and ostensibly "my" show, but I believe that a lot of the art I create is focused on the importance of community, and so I would like to do some performance collaboration with my peers. Our weekly workshops would keep the community together, and constantly creatively approaching the theme of "love." And during 1-on-1/small-group meetings I would be able to give and receive performance input, and keep an eye out for the progress of the show as a whole. The days before the performance would most likely be: dry tech, wet tech, tech run, dress rehearsal, and then show.

This is inspired by family, by spirit, by living, by love.

I have tried to convey to you why I have been inspired to write this piece. All I can think of to say is, How to Love an Asian Woman is a piece about Me.

And I don't mean just about me in my personal relationships. This is not purely autobiographical. I have interviewed several Korean American/women, and translated their experiences with love as best as possible into pieces of this performance.

But this is a piece about me like I have never seen on a Brown stage before. Or for that matter, on any stage, anywhere. And if I want to think in terms of my life growing up as an Asian American woman in the United States: not in the movies, not on television, not in newspapers, not anywhere. Ever.

This is inspired because I have never felt that my stories have been heard.

And on the flip-side, this is inspired because I believe these stories need to be told.

3. Budget
Publicity: $70
Costumes: $160
Media Service Rentals& Set: $200
Props: $25 Total: $455

4. Staff
Production Manager: Vincent Chong