Category: Performance

Wall + Response

Post author By hoisanpoet
Post date July 25, 2021

The Arab Liberation Mural / Will To Live: Youssef Alaoui, Jason Bayani, Genny Lim & Michael Warr

*The Arab Liberation Mural / Will To Live* (2018) by Art Forces, Arab Resource Organizing Center (AROC), and Arab Youth Organizing (AYO)

Friday, June 25, 2021 at 7 pm, on Facebook

A four-event series presented by Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) called Wall + Response, featuring sixteen Bay Area poets responding to the social/ political/ racial/ justice narratives of four murals on Clarion Alley. Curated by CAMP artist and organizer Megan Wilson (wall) and poet Maw Shein Win (response), the fourth and final event in the series featured Youssef Alaoui, Jason Bayani, Genny Lim and Michael Warr responding to the mural The Will To Live (2018) by Art Forces, Arab Resource Organizing Center (AROC), and Arab Youth Organizing (AYO).

Wall + Response was originally conceived to culminate in four quarterly public events to be presented on Clarion Alley. However, due to the pandemic the poets were filmed by videographer Mahima Kotian reading their work in front of the murals on Clarion Alley.

Wall + Response is made possible by the generous support of the San Francisco Art Commission and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.

Tags Clarion Alley, Wall + Response

Performance

“Angel Island Insight”

Post author By hoisanpoet
Post date May 22, 2021

Del Sol Performing Arts Organization’s “Angel Island Insight” explores the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station by offering a suite of virtual and in-person programs that examines the musicality of the disappearing Hoisan-wa dialect by The Last Hoisan Poets and The Del Sol Quartet.

United States of Asian America Festival 2021: Angel Island Insight with The Last Hoisan Poets & Del Sol Quartet

Zoom performance on Saturday, May 22, 2021, 2pm-3:30pm, presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center’s “United States of Asian America Festival” (2021: Forging our Future – SoMa & Chinatown)

Three descendants of Angel Island immigrants, the Last Hoisan Poets – Genny Lim, Nellie Wong and Flo Oy Wong – use poetry to speak their individual truths and creatively reclaim the Hoisan-wa language and culture. The program weaves together their poetry with performances by the Del Sol Quartet, music by Asian-American composers Kui Dong, Theresa Wong, Jungyoon Wie, Huang Ruo, and a collaborative composition. Q&A moderated by Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation’s executive director Edward Tepporn.

This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. This project was also funded in part by a grant from Grants for the Arts.

SF Wednesdays: The Last Hoisan Poets & Del Sol Quartet in Union Square

Wednesday, October 6, 2021, 12-2pm. Free to the public — 2 sets at 12pm & 1pm, with pop-up exhibits by the Chinese Historical Society of America on the history of Angel Island and the Chinese in the Sunset.

World Premiere: Huang Ruo’s ANGEL ISLAND: Oratorio for Voices and Strings

The world premiere of Huang Ruo’s ANGEL ISLAND: Oratorio for Voices and Strings, featuring Del Sol Quartet and Volti with poetry readings by The Last Hoisan Poets, was performed on Friday, October 22, 8pm at the Presidio Theatre and on Saturday, October 23 in the Angel Island Immigration Station barracks on Angel Island, with performances at 11:30am and 1:30pm.

Tags Angel Island, Angel Island Insight, Angel Island Oratorio, Del Sol Quartet, Flo Oy Wong, Huang Ruo, Nellie Wong, The Last Hoisan Poets, Union Square, USAAF

Performance

Healdsburg Jazz: A Celebration of Maya Angelou

Post author By hoisanpoet
Post date April 3, 2021

Healdsburg Jazz’s A Celebration of Maya Angelou, a live outdoors and distanced event, was held on Saturday, April 3, 2021, with Poet Laureate Enid Pickett, and poets Genny Lim and Michael Warr, accompanied by Marcus Shelby (bass) and Rob Sudduth (saxophones).

Tags Healdsburg Jazz, Marcus Shelby, Maya Angelou

Music Performance

Words

Post author By hoisanpoet
Post date February 20, 2021

Del Sol Quartet plays Rzewski, with poetry by Genny Lim

Saturday, February 20, 2021, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

The brilliant composer/pianist Frederic Rzewski joined Del Sol Quartet to present new online performances of Rzewski’s compositions. The program included Words for speaking string quartet and Winter Nights for solo piano, and between musical performances, distinguished San Francisco author Genny Lim contributed a reading of her poetry.

https://www.delsolquartet.com/calendar/2021/2/20/music-of-frederic-rzewski

Del Sol Quartet founder Charlton Lee and Genny Lim join Wanda’s Picks Radio Show on February 19, 2021. Genny reads Word on the Street (for Breonna Taylor) with Del Sol Quartet’s recorded performance of Kerwin Young’s In the Amazon.

Tags Breonna Taylor, Del Sol Quartet, Kerwin Young, Wanda's Picks

Performance

We All Come from Water

Post author By hoisanpoet
Post date June 9, 2020

First Voice: Offerings to Mother Earth

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, First Voice proudly presented a series of artist videos, all made during shelter in place, from the First Voice family of artists and healers. With these offerings, we radiate healing energy, and resonate in new and ancient ways with Mother Earth, so we can remember how to love and care for Her and one another.

http://www.firstvoice.org/earth-dance-offerings

“I’ve known Brenda and Mark for 35 years. We’ve collaborating on many projects over the years from my 1987 performance piece, XX, about the oppression of women, which featured Brenda in the lead to my many poetry and music collaborations with Mark Izu in the early period of Asian American Jazz in the seventies till now. It gives me great pleasure to culminate our decades-old friendship as artists-in-arms to be a part of First Voice’s Offerings to the Earth.

My ode to water is a plea. If we continue to desecrate, pollute and waste this precious element, we will hasten the death of our planet for all living beings. Sea levels have risen to its highest annual level in just the past year and our coastlines are receding. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the catastrophic state of water justice. Twenty-one million Americans, that’s six percent of the population, get water from systems that violate health standards. The Navaho Nation has seen the highest rate of infections per capita in the U.S. and thirty to forty percent of its population have no running water or electricity. It’s time we reverse our course and heal our oceans, rivers and streams, starting with our melting glaciers.”

Tags Earth Day, First Voice, Offerings to Mother Earth, We All Come from Water

Music Performance Poetry

SFJAZZ Poetry Festival 2018 with Genny Lim

Post author By hoisanpoet
Post date April 5, 2018
No Comments on SFJAZZ Poetry Festival 2018 with Genny Lim

Thursday, April 5th – Sunday, April 8, 2018, Joe Henderson Lab

Curated by SFJAZZ Poet Laureate Genny Lim, the 2018 Wordology Festival featured “the greatest poets of the Bay Area and beyond, centered on the concept of ‘wordology.’”

Web Gallery

Genny Lim and Francis Wong at SFJazz Poetry Festival 2018

“I want poets to… let go of their concept of how the poem is supposed to be, to surrender to the spirit of improvisation, so the poem can breathe and become a whole new poem.”
GENNY LIM

This year’s festival is bookended by two illustrious poets: on opening night, former California poet laureate Al Young, whom Lim calls “the Duke Ellington of letters,” and who is the much-honored author of 22 books of various genres; and, playing piano at the closing matinee, Ishmael Reed (“just a lion—a political satirist, a playwright, an essayist,” says Lim).
In between is a multicultural and multigenerational lineup of poets, rappers, spoken-word artists and jazz musicians, many among them part of San Francisco’s underground arts scene, many of them social activists as well: Arlene Biala with musician Brittany Biala; Royal Kent with Copus Multimedia (his duo with composer/pianist Wendy Loomis); also Paul Flores, Tongo Eisen-Martin, QR Hand, novelist and hip-hop artist Aya De Leon, Tony Robles, rapper Equipto, the musical ensemble the Broun Fellinis, “drum strategist” Marshall Trammel and saxophonist Francis Wong. The festival includes a tribute to Charles Mingus and Native American sax player Jim Pepper.
Poetry and Jazz Make a Harmonic Hybrid by JEAN SCHIFFMAN, sfarts.org

Performance

SFJAZZ Poetry Festival 2017 with Genny Lim

Post author By hoisanpoet
Post date April 6, 2017

Genny Lim with Anthony Brown & the Asian American Orchestra: “We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite”

Sunday, April 9, 8:00pm, Joe Henderson Lab

The SFJAZZ Poetry Festival 2017 was curated and hosted by Genny Lim, SFJAZZ Poet Laureate. The program on Sunday, April 9 featured poetry and music by poet devorah major, and then we became, with recording artist Destiny Muhammad, and “We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite,” with Genny Lim, composer and percussionist Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra. The evening was co-presented by Litquake in the Joe Henderson Lab at SFJAZZ Center, 201 Franklin Street, San Francisco.

Web Gallery

Genny Lim, SF Jazz Poet Laureate, performs Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite at SF Jazz (2017)

Web Gallery

On stage, in front of panels lit in blue and reds, SFJAZZ Poet Laureate Genny Lim, Amikaeyla Gaston and trombonist Jasim Perales roar with laughter, as they perform together for "Poetry Matters" the closing performance of SFJAZZ Poetry Festival 2017.

Genny Lim with Anthony Brown and The Asian American Orchestra – Freedom Now Suite

Tags Alejandro Murguia, Anthony Brown, Asian American Orchestra, AVOCTJA, Claude Palmer, Daniel Heffez, Destiny Muhammad, devorah major, Janice Mirikitani, Jennifer Barone, Lewis Jordan, Litquake, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Mo Sati, Poet Laureate, Rico Pabon, SFJAZZ, Tennessee Reed

Performance

Where is Tibet?

Post author By hoisanpoet
Post date December 4, 2009

December 4-5, 2009 at Counterpulse

“All warfare is based on deception.” Sun Tzu, 6th c. B.C.

Politics is gentlemen’s warfare. But when words fail, bombs fall. WHERE IS TIBET?, a performance piece by Genny Lim presented by Asian Improve aRts, invites you to consider the ancient history of China and Tibet before Tibet’s occupation. It is a meditation on our human capacity to understand the nature of good and evil that exists within each of us.

Featuring Genny Lim, Tsering Dorjee Bawa, Lenora Lee, and Francis Wong. Photos by Andy Nozaka.