MORPHOLOGIES: In Search of Geishaghost
IN SEARCH OF GEISHAGHOST
Created/Performed by Ryka Aoki de la Cruz
Sunday, November 11 at 7:30pm
Location:
Pangea World Theater
711 West Lake Street, Suite 101
Minneapolis, MN 55408
This performance will be ASL interpreted and followed by a book sale/signing and reception in the lobby.
MORPHOLOGIES: Queer Performance Festival will present performance and collaborative arts that expose, highlight and expand the spectrum of queer expression and culture, and the transformative social impact it has on the world. MORPHOLOGIES promotes the lives, politics, and experiences of the queer community, both locally and nationally.
Child abuse survivor, poet, songwriter, national judo champion, vegetarian cook, goth princess, and transgender moonshining chemist, Ryka Aoki was transitioning long before her first dose of estrogen. Now she’s on a journey to bring these identities together to become not a queer superhero, but a woman who can reflect and rejoice in her journey thus far. From poems to pot stills, eyeshadow to knife defenses, this show is dedicated to everyone who has ever split themselves into pieces in order to live in the worlds of others–and are trying to get all the pieces back.
Ryka Aoli is a writer, performer, and educator who has been honored by the California State Senate for creating Trans/Giving, LA’s only art/performance series dedicated to trans*, genderqueer, and intersex artists. She has also closely worked with the American Association of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors, and two of her compositions were adopted by the group as its “Songs of Peace.” Ryka appears in the recent trans documentaries Diagnosing Difference and Riot Acts as well as the recently-published anthology Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation (Seal Press). Ryka was the inaugural performer for San Francisco’s first ever Transgender Stage at San Francisco Pride 2005, and has performed in venues including the San Francisco Pride Main Stage, the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival, the National Queer Arts Festival, Ladyfest South, Atlanta Pride, UCLA’s OutCRY, Santa Cruz Pride, and Emory University’s Pride Week. Ryka was keynote speaker at UC Santa Barbara’s 2005 Pride Week, GenderFusions 2008 at Columbia College, and UW Madison’s Trans Awareness Week 2009. She has as an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University and is the recipient of a University Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her chapbook, Sometimes Too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines (Inconvenient Press) won the 2010 Eli Coppola Chapbook Contest. Ryka’s poetry appears in the 2011 edition of Many Mountains Moving, and Hummingbird Review. She is a professor of English at Santa Monica College.
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