Performance Dates & Times
Friday January 24th at 7:30pm
Saturday January 25th at 3pm
Saturday January 25th at 7:30pm
Location
20 Putnam Avenue in Brooklyn, C or G train to Clinton-Washington. Accessible station at Franklin Avenue C/Shuttle train.
Yibin Wang & Yejia Sun: Tongues
This performance is apart of The Exponential Festival.
Directed by Yibin Wang
Dramaturgy by Yejia Sun
Creative Produced by Ruby Wang
Associate Directed & Projection Design by Qixin Zhang
Lighting Design by Kristen Paige
Performed by Andy Law, Michi Zaya, Om Raj Raut, Mia Zhu
Tongues is a gathering, an event, and a performance where we’ll re-enact the most mundane daily moments, belt out our go-to karaoke songs, and, of course, explore the art of swearing in our native Asian languages. Join us as we connect and create new, shared experiences through the power of our mother tongues.
Performers of Asian descent will share personal stories of navigating two language worlds, offering a glimpse into the cultural crossroads they live in. We invite you to join us as we connect and create new shared experiences together.
Keep up with them @tongues_art on instagram!
Special thanks to our community partners: Rattlestick Theatre, Museum of Chinese in America, University Settlement
About the Artist
Yibin Wang was born and raised in Hangzhou, China. Since 2016, He has been creating original theatrical works in China, the U.S., and internationally. He co-wrote and directed The Family, a play that portrays two familiar yet foreign forms of the Chinese family, premiered at the Old Gym Theater, in 2017. In the summer of 2018, according to the original stories and other resources, he re-devised The Family and brought it back to his hometown at 201 Sheng-qi Studio. After that, he met the opportunity to found the Character Group with the original cast of the production. Currently, the Character Group is coming up with a new original work about the local Hangzhou dialect. He also conceived and directed Those of Us, a documentary piece at the Old Gym Theater in 2018. In 2019, he researched the postdramatic theater in Germany and directed Snow White and Charges by Elfriede Jelinek at the Factory, Berlin. On February 2020, he finished his senior project, Our Grandparents/旧识, which he co-wrote and directed based on the creators' memories with their grandparents. After the pandemic, he is been continuing to work around the "realness on stage" through adaptation pieces like The Vanya Project and A Hunger Artist and "liveness in theater" through pieces like A Theater Letter To You that explore the boundary and agreement with the audience. Other recent artistic credits include 2021 Design Care Project (Co-Curator) and 2020 B.O.N.D. International Virtual Performance Festival (Associate Artistic Director). Recent assistant credits include This Body Is So Permanent, Medee (dir. Peter Sellars); Promenade (dir. Morgan Green); The Mother's Stories (dir. CHIA). He is also interested in the human narratives in physicality and technology in theatrical space and the difference between the east and west in this field. BA in Theater and Performance, Bard College. MFA in Theatre Directing, Columbia University.
Yejia Sun (she/her/hers) is a dramaturg, filmmaker, and writer from Beijing, China, and based in New York City. In New York, her dramaturgical/playwriting of multidisciplinary works are performed at National Sawdust, Exponential Festival(JACK), Cellunova New Play Festival(Theaterlab), Museum of Chinese Americans, Chain Theater, Under St.Marks Theater, International Human Rights Art Festival (Tank Theater), University Settlement, etc. Her film was shortlisted for Shanghai International Short Film Week and one of her Chinese plays is about to be published in Chinese Author Magazine. In China, her dramaturgical works are presented at Goethe Institute Shanghai, Rockbound Museum, and Young Theater. She is a recipient of the Lisa Lu Scholarship 2024 by CESASC and a student artist-in-residence at Movement Lab. She has worked and interned at the National Center for Performing Arts in China, Under the Radar Theater Festival, the Drama League, and the International Emmy Awards. She is particularly interested in Theater of the Real, Posthumanism, Ecodramaturgy, and Intermedial Performance, and she wants to work in the intersection of Art, Technology/Science, and Social Justice in topics being both timely and timeless. Before coming to the US two years ago, she received a BFA in Film and Media Production in China and worked for 2 years as a full-time Press Manager at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Dramaturgy at Columbia University. In her spare time, she loves hiking, taking photos of the clouds, and spending time with her cat in Beijing.