Artists-in-Residence
This program aims to foster emerging and established Bay Area artists in creating new works. Some past artists include Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Philip Huang, Nitya Venkateswaran, Asian Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership (AYPAL) Cambodian site, Karmacy, Word & Violin, and the Shaolin Buddhist Temple & Education Foundation.
"The OACC, known for showcasing traditional Asian arts, was open to more experimental work from a queer artist like myself, and the staff showed unflagging enthusiasm as the show developed. OACC's investment took my work to levels I could not have reached on my own. As a queer artist, I didn't know how my work would fit in Oakland Chinatown. But with OACC's support and willingness to explore, we opened some new doors in this historic neighborhood. I am eternally grateful to the OACC for believing in me, and to the East Bay Community Foundations' East Bay Fund for Artists (EBFA) for providing the opportunity to play together. It's been quite a year, and I thank the EBFA and OACC for kick starting my career."
Current 2010 Artist in Residence TBA!
Philip Huang - 2009 Artist in Resident (Winter 2008 - 2009)
Spring 2009 Artist in Residence
Jay Loyola
This residency is a great opportunity for Jay Loyola to develop performing artists and continue its mission to increase positive reception of Philippine cultural traditions using neo-ethnic dance form. Loyola’s participation in Oakland Asian Cultural Center residency program will take his works to the next level of development reaching a more diverse audience. In furtherance, while the immediate impact will be felt by the artists themselves, the cultural significance of this is the trans-generational transfer of Philippine traditions and tremendously has a widening effect on the Asian community as his admiration to take pride with Asian’s common heritage to reassert universal ties as a people. Jay Loyola recognizes the importance of actively engaging youth thus creating new generations of culturally invested community members and for young people of Philippine heritage within a multicultural population who desire a deeper connection to their roots. Loyola has a purpose to meet this cultural longing. Today’s youth move through educational system, with high school, college and beyond, they will inherently bring along a strong sense of heritage that can be shared with others.
For more than sixteen years, Loyola has created dance pieces performed by cultural groups in the Philippines, Asia and Europe.
His dance method have garnered respect form his peers as he emerged as the Bay Area’s ingenious dance practitioner with choreographies motivated through immersions in Philippine indigenous tribes. He has significantly contributed to Bay Area’s multicultural landscape by performances at major venues such as Palace of Fine Arts, and Cowell Theater as well as festival events like San Francisco Ethnic Festival, Pistahan Festival, and Filipino-American Arts Exposition that have been attended in by more than 150,000 audiences who yearn to experience a genuine Philippine dance experience.
Remembering the Palawan Busyador:
The “busyador” are known to get nests from the remote caves in far flung Palawan islands in the Philippines. The white nests and the “red blood” nests are traditionally believed to provide health and overall benefit to the immune system. These edible bird’s nests are built during the breeding season by the male swiftlet locally called “balinsasayaw”. The nests are composed of interwoven strands of salivary laminae cement that have high levels of calcium, iron, potassium, and magnesium. The "cave nests" are traditionally harvested from high up on cave walls. There is a tremendous risk to the collectors who stand on bamboo scaffolding that is sometimes hundreds of feet tall and centuries old. Over the past years, the demand, the price, and the overexploitation of these nests have increased parallel to the increased of deaths in the process of harvests due to the risks involved in harvesting the latter.In memory of their courage, their unconditional love and for the families who endlessly hope for them to return home.
AYPAL - Filipinos For Affirmative Action Site
Jean Tolentino, site leader for AYPAL, Filipinos for Affirmative Action site, describes the process and focus of their new work:
"Our youth plan and help develop our artistic performances and educational workshops for middle and high school students. For this project, it aims to relate the Filipino history and hardships to social justice and current events, through cultural dances and Guerilla Theater. Filipino folk dances are widely popular, so we want to connect to others through our cultural expressions of dance. We want to share and teach others about life in American and the life within a Filipino-historical background; and through dance and theater, we can illustrate and celebrate the different lifestyles, struggles and accomplishments.
By showcasing our cultural dances and theater pieces, we can educate others in the community. Our theater piece will focus on the deep history of the Filipino people from pre-Spanish colonization to present-day conditions of Filipino-Americans in our community today.
The cultural pieces of dance will connect to the theater piece by weaving stories and acting into each other. The Filipino history will be highlighted by the youth through theater and dance." 
Kyoungil Ong
OACC is thrilled to have Kyoungil Ong of the Ong Dance company join us for a second residency. She will continue to work with her youth ensemble to create a dance and drum piece focusing on Korean mask traditions, depicting class struggles both historically in the Korean High Court and currently in the Bay Area Korean Community. See below for her profile.
2008-09 Artists-in-Residence
Kyoungil Ong
Artistic Director of Ong Dance Company & San Francisco Cultural Center, Kyoungil Ong is a professional dancer, choreographer, and artistic director for Ong Dance Companies in both Korea and the United States. The Ong Dance Company creates contemporary compositions based on traditional themes.
Dancing since the age of four, Kyoungil Ong received her training for drum, ballet, modern and Korean dance in Korea, where she graduated with top honors from the prestigious Seoul Arts High School, and from Sungkyunkwan University where she earned her B.A. in dance and her M.A. in Physical Education. While in college, she won the coveted Gold medal for the adult women's competition in the prestigious 25th annual Dong-A Dance Concourse. Ms. Ong has served as an instructor for several universities.
Ms. Ong gained national acclaim as Principal Dancer for the National Dance Company of Korea, performing at prestigious stages worldwide, including the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the 1998 World Cup in France, and venues throughout 30 countries, including Japan, Germany, Italy, and the Americas. She has worked in collaboration with Japanese and Chinese dancers for various Drum Dance performances, through which she was able to explore new directions in choreography. She has choreographed over 40 new works.
Of her American achievements, Ms. Ong has completed multiple performances for the Asian Art Museum, World Arts West’s People Like Me, Asian American EXPO, and The Works to Work, and more. In her concert, Merging of East and West in Korean Dance, for the Asian Art Museum, which was supported by the Bay Area CA$H Grant, her work brought out the hidden beauty of traditional Korean dance. The Ong Dance Company was selected to receive the Ethnic Dance Choreography Commission Award from World Arts West and The San Francisco Foundation in 2005, as well as she received the Isadora Duncan award about outstanding achievement company in 2006. Also she received the Grant from Art Council Korea for new young artist in 2006.
The Ong Dance Company will be creating a traditional Korean drum and dance piece as a resident artist at OACC. The music is inspired by the sounds of nature, of wind in trees, waves, leaves and flowers. The composition will be unique in that the dancers will move the drums as they play, creating new sounds based on the movement and location of drum to viewer and spatial relationship of the drums and player/dancers to each other. Currently, the sam-go-mu (standing and tree drum) and mo-dume-buk (large barrel drum) are being considered.
Dohee Lee
Dancer/Musician/Vocalist, Dohee Lee is the founder of the groundbreaking PURI Project. In Korea, Ms. Lee received her degree in Korean traditional dance and music (Percussion) from Yong-In University in Korea. Recently, she has learned Kyunggi region's shamanic music and dance. She has toured throughout South Korea, Japan, China (Beijing since 2005, she annually performed "PURI Project – A calling to the spirits project) and the United States. In the United States, she is a member of Turn of the Century, a creative jazz group that has performed at the Asian American jazz festival for the past three years (2001-2003) in San Francisco and Chicago (2004, 2006). She has performed improvisations and set works with Shinichi Iova-Koga (Butoh dancer) on both coasts of the USA (as a musician, dancer). Other USA performances include the Facing East Dance and Music show, "Angel Island" (2003) with Sue Li Jue, a Korean folk arts performance at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, Ethnic dance festival 2001, 2006 and the "The Dance Is Festival" show (1/31/2004) at the Julia Morgan Theater and The Asian American Dance Festival (4/30/04) in San Francisco. Asian American Dance Performance (2004, 5), the Final installation "3 Drops of Blood" performed with PURI Project and Nanos Operetta. Dohee also teaches Korean drumming and dance at the Korean Youth Cultural Center (KYCC) for children and adults where she currently works as the artistic director.
About her piece:
"Pungmul" is an ancient agrarian Korean art form involving drumming, dancing, and singing. Pungmul served many different purposes- it was performed in a celebratory manner during harvest time and New Year's festivals, during rituals to repel evil spirits, as well as during farming rituals. Thus, pungmul was often found at the center of community activities. Pungmul heightens the sense of community as traditionally, it takes place in open spaces rather than on stage, where there is no boundary between the audience and the performers.
"Suljanggo" is the solo drumming dancing and playing which combines lots of formations which influenced by Military army forms and dynamic rhythm patterns. In this piece, we are bringing back traditional arts form and communal spirits into a new arrangement.
Philip Huang
Model-turned-actress Philip Huang is the star of Semen and White Lace: A One-Woman Show, which ran for 2 sold-out nights at the OACC in February. His work is a combination of music, monologues, and poorly-done drag. He is also the founder of Dana Street Theater, the only queer performance space in the East Bay. You can see videos of his work at www.youtube.com/user/spider75berkeley or contact him at Philiphuang@aol.com.
2008 Artists-in-Residence
Word and Violin. Sri Lankan poet Pireeni Sundaralingam and Irish composer/violinist Colm O'Riain weave together poetry, music and storytelling in duets exploring the rich interconnections between a host of lyric traditions, including Irish ballad and Indian raag. Their work has featured across the USA and Europe in such venues as the English National Theatre (London) and the UN Headquarters (New York) as well as festivals including Cuisle International Poetry Festival (Ireland), LitQuake Festival of Literature (San Francisco), and Cheltenham Festival of Literature (UK). They have held a variety of residencies (e.g. "Major Artistic Residency" at Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2005 & 2008) and have taught creative workshops in a number of environments (University of Washington, 2007).
Their CD, "Bridge Across the Blue", winner of the Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize, interweaves music and poetry from a host of ethnic communities telling the immigration stories of America, with influences ranging from Gypsy jazz to flamenco and Native American song. It was chosen as one of the ten best recordings of poetry and music of all time by the editors of About.Com.
Karmacy. In a world that grew up with hip hop, Karmacy invents a hip hop that grows up with us. For the crew's three emcees -- KB, Nimo and Swap -- music is a living, breathing companion that beats along with all the hearts they've touched.
The Karmacy sound pays respect to the fundamentals of hip hop, yet never hesitates to push boundaries, layering multilingual flows atop cross-cultural beats with lyrics and themes that invite people to think. This conscientious mix has won them worldwide recognition, headline shows at venues like the House of Blues in Hollywood, and the company of acts like Ozomatli, Karsh Kale and Will I Am. In 2001, Karmacy released its debut album, The Movement. It shook the scene with a willingness to address our fragile social landscape and an ability to intertwine the group members' personal journeys into each track. Karmacy's latest record, Wooden Bling, consists of profound grooves and mature, harder beats while uniting the trio's bold lyrics with a revitalized, more determined sound.
AYPAL stands for Asian Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership. AYPAL views culture as a form of resistance and a vital component of youth organization. Asian culture is reflected by AYPAL in both traditional and contemporary dance and rhythms.
An example of AYPAL performance group is the Cambodian site taught by teacher Mary Chueon. At OACC's APA Heritage Festival 2008, their group will be performing the Stick Dance or Robam AngRe, a folklore dance that describes the livelihood of the Cambodian population in the countryside. The Stick Dance incorporates contemporary hip hop and movement to tell the story of the violence in oakland. This dance explores ways culture and resistance can be utilized to empower people, change the system, and take action to address the root causes of violence to prevent it from destroying our community.
2007 Artists-in-Residence
Nitya Venkateswaran, born and raised in California, U.S.A, has been immersed in the classical dance form of Bharatanatyam for the past 25 years. She began her Bharatanatyam training in the Thanjavur style at the age of four from Vishal Ramani, Artistic Director of Shri Krupa Dance Company, San Jose, CA.
Audiences and critics attending Nitya’s performances have recognized and commented on Nitya's talent for executing challenging footwork sequences and adeptly emoting the musical content of Bharatanatyam.
A graduate of University of California, Berkeley, Nitya currently lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya is a fifty member ensemble of musicians and dancers, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, that specializes in the performing arts of Bali, Indonesia. It is recognized internationally as “the finest Balinese gamelan ensemble outside of Indonesia.” (Indonesia’s Tempo Magazine)
Gamelan Sekar Jaya makes continual efforts to reach out to new audiences and make Balinese arts accessible to all. Towards that end, they have many successful partnerships with organizations that focus on community-based education in the arts.