City Pages
“It’s been quite a year for Hmong playwright Katie Ka Vang. A year ago, she was diagnosed with stage four anaplastic large T-cell lymphoma. Thankfully, her cancer is now in remission. This weekend, she will be performing a work she was commissioned to write for Pangea World Theater in 2008, and staged as a work-in-progress in 2010.”
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by Marino Eccher
Pioneer Press
3/13/2013
“When Katie Ka Vang was young and her family was still adjusting to life in America, her sisters used to frequent an Indian grocery store next to the Laundromat where their parents would drop them off. There, they’d rent Bollywood movies and take them home.
The films became a staple in the Hmong family. In the broad, over-the-top but relatable musical epics, Vang found role models that helped plant the spark for a career in the performing arts.”
by Joe Kellen
Minnesota Daily
3/14/2013
“When words fail local playwright Katie Ka Vang, she dances. Her preferred accompaniment is almost always the film staple of her childhood: Bollywood music. Growing up in a Hmong household that adored the colorful film genre, Vang visibly carries its energy in her body.”
by Marianne Combs
MPR News
3/14/2013
“A little more than a year ago, the prognosis for Katie Ka Vang was not good.
Vang was diagnosed with stage four anaplastic T-cell large lymphoma, and had tumors in 60 – 70% of her body. She couldn’t even walk.
Now she’s not only walking, she’s back to performing on stage with her one woman show Hmong Bollywood.”
by Rohan Preston
Star Tribune
11/9/12
MORPHOLOGIES: A QUEER PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL
[Runs through 11/19]: The festival kicks off Friday [11/9/12] with Alaskan transgender performing artist Scott Turner Schofield‘s “Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps.” Schofield lets the audience choose the stories that will be told. (7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., Ritz Theater, 345 13th Av. NE., Mpls.) The festival also includes poet and essayist Ryka Aoki de la Cruz‘s self-created “In Search of Geishaghost.” (7:30 p.m. Sun., Pangea World Theater Studio, 711 W. Lake St., Mpls.), plus three shows at Intermedia Arts: Tamil/Sri Lankan-American activist and provocateur D’Lo‘s “D’FUNQT”; “Shaking Our Shells: Stories From On the Wings of Wadaduga,” a history-based show about “Cherokee … GLBTQ memories” written and performed by Qwo-Li Driskill; and “Outside the Circle,” a play about seduction written and performed by Andrea Assaf and Samuel Valdez. (“D’FUNQT” is at 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thu., “Outside the Circle,” 7:30 p.m. next Fri.-Sat., “Shaking Our Shells,” 7:30 p.m. Nov. 18 & 19, Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale Av. S., Mpls. Tickets: $15 per show or $75 for the whole festival. www.brownpapertickets.com.)
KFAI Radio Without Boundaries
11/8/12
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE AUDIO OF THE RADIO SHOW!
Morphologies: Queer Performance Festival Opens [11/9/12]: The festival kicks off Friday [11/9/12] with Alaskan transgender performing artist Scott Turner Schofield‘s “Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps.” Schofield lets the audience choose the stories that will be told. (7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., Ritz Theater, 345 13th Av. NE., Mpls.)
Morphologies: Queer Performance Festival
Friday November 9, 2012 through November 19, 2012
Check the full schedule at pangeaworldtheater.org or tctwentypercent.org
Tickets: for the festival. www.brownpapertickets.com
by Sheila Regan
City Pages
11/8/12
In a perfectly timed, post-defeated marriage amendment fashion, Morphologies: Queer Performance Festival opens this weekend, offering an opportunity to celebrate Minnesota’s victory against discrimination through theater. The festival includes six shows, workshops, and panel discussions at Intermedia Arts, Ritz Theater, and Pangea World Theater Studio.
She was immediately welcomed to the table, and the three organizations began talking about what a partnership might look like. In the summer of 2011, they hunkered down and started to plan how they would pay for it, looking at what grants they could apply for. They brainstormed about what the name should be, and what they wanted as the vision for the festival.
Workshops include D’Lo examining with participants the process of creating a performance piece, where they will have a chance to write and perform themselves. There’s also Schofield’s workshop about queer self-esteem. Panel discussions will offer a chance to “dig deeper into the big picture and concepts,” Avitabile says. Folks will be able to explore queer art, and the politics and aesthetics around it. Each show will also have a post-show discussion.
by Simon Benarroch
Minnesota Daily
11/8/12
What: “Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps” by Scott Turner Schofield
Where: The Ritz Theater, 343 13th Ave. NE, Minneapolis
When: 7:30 p.m., Friday through Saturday
Cost: $12 for students, $15 for adults
Like any good storyteller, Scott Turner Schofield knows a future-anecdote when he sees one.
Years ago, Schofield quit waitressing to perform solo shows full time. He identified as a “she” in those days — as “Kt” Kilborn, a lesbian woman.
When she announced her resignation, Kilborn’s boss, a man Schofield referred to as a “self-described redneck,” took it upon himself to ferry his employee into manhood, and demanded that the mid-trans transgender male accompany him to a strip club.
Kilborn agreed, went to the club and got a lap dance — courtesy of the boss, who then whispered a line to one of the dancers that soon made Kilborn’s the prize lap for every unaffiliated stripper in the room. Kilborn asked him about it later that night.
Schofield quoted the boss from memory: “He said ‘I told them you were a man because it was your 21st birthday, but you weren’t a man because you got your dick cut off in a tractor accident.’”*********
“I’m a feminist, I’ve taken Women’s Studies,” Schofield later recalled thinking, “but this is a story.”
It is, in fact, one of the “steps” comprising “Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps,” an interactive one-man comedy show Schofield has performed across Europe and the U.S. since 2007. One of the show’s unique qualities is its “choose your own adventure” format — audience participation is central to its structure.
Schofield asks random people to pick numbers, between 1 and 127, which correspond to various skits, stunts and anecdotes drawn from Schofield’s personal true story library. These can range from lengthier bits like the “tractor accident” scenario, or a serious monologue about suicide to short spectacles like a 30-odd second scene in which Schofield slams a beer as the audience chants “Chug!”
Schofield draws his stories from times when he’s had to confront questions of male identity. He said “127 Steps” evolves as new stories play themselves out in his own life.
He assumes the role of someone who’s more-or-less been through the uncertain process of gender re-identification.
It was a step that led him to quit performing one of his two other shows, “Underground TRANsit.” He said he considered it his best work — but Kilborn’s confused female identity was the subject, leaving no role in the show for Scott Schofield.
In recent years, Schofield said he’s noticed certain nuances to being male, many of which have inspired new additions to “Becoming a Man.”
“It’s kind of like being a fish in water,” he said. “As a man, people listen to me.”
“Becoming a Man” illustrates this in a bit where Schofield asks a member of the audience, usually a woman, to “talk like a man.” As soon as the audience-member opens her mouth, Schofield interrupts her with a string of long-winded, self-important retorts.
“That’s happened to me countless times,” he said. “I become conscious of the fact that I’m talking total bullshit.”
Since he last performed the show at the National Theater of Belgium two years ago, Schofield has added six new stories to his deck, which now totals 54. Short of the mark, sure, but Schofield has a lifetime to fill the remaining 73-story vacancies.
According to Schofield, Friday’s performance of “Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps” may be the last of its kind.
“I’m starting to rework it so it’s a lot more tour-able. The acrobatics, the full-frontal nudity — I’m reworking that.”
He said he’s looking to broaden the audience. A lot of venues won’t show “Becoming a Man” because of its occasional nudity, which the show’s promo describes as “necessary and fun.” He’ll also have to tone down the acrobatic elements, as it requires props that make staging difficult.
“I might take it in a more ‘Joe’ direction,” he said. “Nov. 9 may be the last performance that is done this way.”
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NATIVE YOUTH VOICES: AUDITION NOTICE
Showcasing Native American youth talent and voices through performances of dialogue spoken word, dance, movement, video, music and more.
AUDITIONS will be held at Pangea World Theater Studio
Friday, October 19 || 4-7pm
Saturday, October 20 || 2-4pm
Please call Katie at 612-822-0015 x1 to schedule an audition!
Curated by Sophia Sarenpa, Resident Artist, Pangea World Theater
Native Youth Voices is part of Pangea World Theater’s Indigenous Voices Series, co-presented with Intermedia Arts.
Lecture/Demonstration at Pangea World Theater by McKnight Fellow Kanniks Kannikeswaran
In search of collaborative musicians, singers, and dancers
to explore and create a performance piece in 2013.
In the past Kanniks Kannikeswaran has taken the music of Muthuswami Dikshitar (1775-1835) and created multimedia performance pieces with musicians, singers and dancers of various communities. Kanniks has explored the compositions of Dikshitar based on Irish and Scottish melodies and their relationship to Appalachian music in America.
What is the connection between South Indian Karnatic Music and Appalachian music?
What was happening in early 19th century India? How did this adaptation come into being in the minds of one of the most orthodox composers in India? How did tunes get adapted in two diametrically opposite parts of the world during the same time in history? What do these compositions sound like?
Musician Kanniks wants to connect with Twin Cities musicians, singers and dancers to create a new performance piece. Please come and explore new music questions and create a new work.
Please come as composer/music educator and McKnight Fellow Kanniks Kannikeswaran presents his research on the Indo Colonial music of the 1800s as an introduction in preparation to create an interactive multimedia musical dialog .
Monday, October 22 || 7:30 PM
Pangea World Theater Studio
711 West Lake Street, Suite 101
Minneapolis 55408
FREE!
Kanniks Kannikeswaran (www.kanniks.com) is an award winning composer, music educator and scholar whose work has been performed in and has had an impact in several parts of the world. Kanniks is the pioneer of the Indian American choral movement. His far reaching work in this area has led to the founding of Indian community choirs in several places such as Allentown PA, Tampa FL, Houston TX, Minneapolis MN and more. The Greater Cincinnati Indian community choir that he founded secured two silver medals in the prestigious champions category in the just concluded 7th World Choir Games. Kanniks has collaborated with artists such as Lakshmi Shankar, Mallika Sarabhai, with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra to name a few and his work has been performed by large ensembles at the National University of Singapore. Kanniks has been teaching at the University of Cincinnati in the capacity of an Adjunct Faculty since 1994. He is the recipient of several awards such as the Ohio Heritage Fellowship and the McKnight Fellowship. Kanniks is often described as a renaissance personality who effortlessly traverses diverse disciplines such as music, spirituality and management. He is the founder of the ‘American School of Indian Art’, an Institution committed to bringing the best of the East and the West to the Indian American diaspora and beyond.
