Project Title: True Freedom: Anatomy of An American Family
Recipient Organization: Asian Improv aRts
Lead Artist: Genny Lim
Genre and Date Awarded: Literary Arts, June 2004
To Be Completed: October 2005

Writer and performer Genny Lim and Asian Improv aRts are collaborating to create “True Freedom: Anatomy of an American Family,” a new short story collection that is informed by a writer’s residency at the Chinatown Beacon Center at Jean Parker Elementary School.

Jean Parker is the school that Genny Lim attended as a child, and the project will enable Lim to connect her coming of age experiences in the 1950s and 60s Chinatown/North Beach neighborhoods to the issues facing the neighborhoods’ immigrant children and their families today. The Beacon Center and School population is composed largely of Chinese and Latin American immigrants who are bused in from San Francisco’s Mission District. Both populations come from working class backgrounds and many of the children’s families have undergone tremendous hardship in order to come to the United States.

During the project’s initial nine months, Lim will hold weekly workshops at the Chinatown Beacon Center, using her own stories and poetry to inspire young participants to create photographs, stories, and poems about their elders, community heroes, and themselves. Lim writes, “It is my hope that through the medium of interactive imagery, talk story, and poetry, children can learn to overcome the barriers of difference in a world that is increasingly divided.” The workshop will conclude with an exhibit, journal of students’ writings, and a reading by workshop participants and Lim.

Lim notes that working with young people at her old school, allows her to “re-populate her memory” and “locate the old places,” enriching her palette for her own stories. After completing her manuscript, she will return to the Beacon Center to present a series of three readings with guest artists. Two publishers have expressed possible interest in the story collection.

Genny Lim is a native San Francisco poet-vocalist, performer, director, playwright, and educator. Her award-winning play, Paper Angels was broadcast on American Playhouse in 1985. She is the author of the children’s book Wings for Lai Ho; two collections of poetry, Winter Place and Child of War; and co-author of Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940. Lim has appeared in numerous jazz poetry concerts and festivals. She was a recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship for a collaboration with Jon Jang and James Newton, Songlines: A Tribute to Paul Robeson and Mei Lanfang.

For more than 16 years, Asian Improv aRts (AIR) has produced high-quality cultural events in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was co-founded in 1987 by musicians Jon Jang and Francis Wong to support the career development of Asian American composers and musicians. Since then, AIR has grown to be the largest San Francisco-based presenter dedicated to multidisciplinary work expressing the Asian American experience. Key activities have been creating concert seasons in the San Francisco Bay Area, creating collaborative events and residencies with schools and arts organizations across the United States, and providing technical assistance and production support to the Asian American and multicultural artist community. Both Jon Jang and Francis Wong have collaborated with Genny Lim on performing arts projects. Asian Improv aRts was a producing partner for the Creative Work Fund supported project When Sorrow Turns to Joy, presented at Cal Performances in 2000 and is producing its premiere in Paris in 2004.

LEAD ARTIST

Genny Lim

RESUME HIGHLIGHTS

Teaching

• Core Faculty, Humanities, New College of California, teaching Performance, Poetry, Creative Writing, Buddhism (1989-present)
• Adjunct Faculty, Naropa Institute, Oakland, teaching Creative Writing/Ritual Theater (1989-present)
• Associate Professor, University of California, Theater Arts Program, Asian American Theater (fall 1999)

Selected Theater and Performance

• When Sorrow Turns to Joy: Songlines: The Spiritual Tributary of Paul Robeson and Mei Lanfang, librettist in collaboration with Jon Jang and James Newton, premiere, Zellerbach Playhouse, Cal Performances, University of California, Berkeley (June 1-3, 2000) and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (June 9-10, 2000)
• Paper Angels, premiere, Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, California (September-October 1980); New Federal Theater, New York, New York (March-April 1982); Asian Theater Group at the Ethnic Cultural Center, Seattle, Washington (May 1983); Theater Mu, Minneapolis, Minnesota (March-April 1995); Asian Pacific Theater Company, Sacramento, California (October 1996)
• Bitter Cane, produced at Morgan-Wixson Theatre, Santa Monica (May-June 1997); West Coast Ensemble, Hollywood, California (November-December 1993)
• La China Poblana, multimedia performance collaboration with performance artists Guadalupe Garcia and Victor Mario Zaballa, score by Herbie Lewis, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, California (1991)
• Winter Place, interdisciplinary collaboration combining sculpture, music, and theater with Jon Jang and puppets and installations by Donna Nomura Dobkin and Cassandra Light, Hatley-Martin Gallery, San Francisco, California (December 1988)
• The Pumpkin Girl, Bay Area Playwrights Festival X premiere, Artists of Marin, San Rafael, California (August 1987)
• XX, interdisciplinary performance piece featuring Koichi Tamano and Brenda Wong Aoki, The LAB, San Francisco, California (June-July 1987)
• Pigeons, one-act play, premiere, San Francisco Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco, California (September 1983); Hampden Theater, University of Massachusetts (November 1985)
• Daughter of Han and I Remember Clifford, performance pieces, Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival VI, Mill Valley, California (August 1983)

Video and Film

• Genny Lim: The Voice, feature video documentary by David Moragne, Artscape (2000)
• Pins and Noodles, narrator, produced by Persona Grata, PBS premiere (1997)
• Chinatown: Episode Two of Neighborhoods: The Hidden Cities of San Francisco, featured poetry, KQED-TV (1996)
• Paper Angels, national video broadcast adaptation of play, American Playhouse, PBS (1996)
• The Only Language She Knows, dramatic feature produced by Ishmael Reed Productions (1992)
• The Only Language She Knows, 20-minute feature portrait of Bay Area playwright Genny Lim, produced by Steven Okasaki and Amy Hill, Silk Screen Series, PBS (1987)
• Fei Tien, film adaptation by Christine Choy of Pigeons, premiere, New York City (1984)

Selected Books and Anthologies

• Child of War, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, HI (2003)
• Winter Place, poems by Genny Lim, Kearny Street Press (1989)
• ISLAND: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940, by Lim with Him Mark Lai and Judy Yung, Hoc-Doi, San Francisco (1980)
• Wings for Lai Ho, translated by Gordon Lew, East West, San Francisco (1982)
• The Chinese American Experience, edited by Genny Lim, Chinese Historical Society of America, San Francisco, California (1984)
• Bitter Cane, in Unbroken Thread: Anthology of Plays by Asian American Women, Houston, Temple (editors) (1993)
• “The Modern Period, Carved on the Walls: Poetry by Chinese Immigrants,” The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 1 (1993)
• “Genny Lim: Poet and Playwright,” Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Arts, Amy Ling, Temple (1999)

Selected Awards

• John D. Rockefeller Foundation Award, “Cantata for Paul Robeson Jr. and Mei Lanfang,” collaboration with Jon Jang and James Newton (1997)
• Distinguished Award for Culture, San Francisco Chinese Culture Center Foundation (1996)
• Authors’ Award from Kimochi Inc., “Sansei Live!, Salute to Asian American Writers,” (1994)
• ImprovisAsians Award for artistic excellence and community service, Asian Improv aRts, San Francisco, California (1993)
• Goldie Award, “Outstanding Local Discovery,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, San Francisco, California (1991)