Booking Manager: Jona Mercado
Road Managers: Vivienne Diawara Tan, Jill Aguado, Amy Paul, Varuni Tiruchelvam, marian yalini thambynayagam, jennifer cendaa armas
Show Coordinators: Lani T. Montreal, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, marian yalini thambynayagam, jennifer cendaa armas, Anida Yoeu Esguerra, Sharmili Majmudar, Juliana Pegues
Performers/Writers: Jill Aguado, jennifer cendaa armas, Kay Barrett, Emily C. Chang, Vanessa De Guia, Anida Yoeu Esguerra, Sharmili Majmudar, Lani T. Montreal, , Amy Paul, Juliana Pegues, Sarwat Rumi, marian yalini thambynayagam, Varuni Tiruchelvam, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai
Video Artists: Ann Poochareon, San Tong, Anida Yoeu Esguerra
Bios:
Lani T. Montreal, writer, performer, rabblerouser, has penned six plays, the latest being the Gift of Tongue, about a young woman's journey to reclaim peace through rhythm and rhyme. The play premiered at Chicago's Chopin Theater in December 2004 and is being featured at the 2005 Chicago Asian Heritage Month celebrations at Insight Arts in May. Her writings have been published in Canada (Peace Magazine, The ACTivist, Brownscene, Storefront), in the US (Riksha, Bloodstone, Filipinas, Mother Tongues, Our Own Voice) and the Philippines (Tibok, Sunday Inquirer Magazine). Her essay, "Poetry and Bonesetting" is included in Pinoy Poetics, the celebrated first international poetics anthology of Filipino English-language poets (Meritage Press). She received the Roosevelt University 2001 Samuel Ostrowsky Award for her memoir, "Summer Rain" and the 1995 JVO Award for Excellence in Journalism for her Sunday Inquirer expose, "Poison in the River."
marian yalini thambynayagam is a 27 year old queer british born, American bred sri lankan tamil woman livin in brooklyn by way of texas. sick of bouncin' between in betweens, she lives in the borderlands where poetry is theater is love is movement is song is prayer is rebellion. she looks to reshape reality seeking peace through justice in the lands of earth, psyche, spirit, and dream. she thanx n sends much luv to all those who feed her inspiration and help her unlearn her education. marian was a participant and collective member of Youth Solidarity Summer and is currently a member of SALGA. she was the co-founder of University of Texas's theater
company of color Drive By Players and movement director for the NYC run of Descendants of Freedom: A Futuristic Queer Hip Hop Odyssey. she is working in collaboration with other activists in response to the South and South East Asian earthquake and tsunami tragedy by supporting grassroots initiatives in affected countries.
Anida Yoeu Esguerra seeks an artistic, spiritual and political exploration of her identity as a non hyphenated Cambodian Muslim American woman. Esguerra uses an interdisciplinary approach to creating art which mixes the visual, spoken and written into performed explorations of hybrid identities. A believer in the power of collective creations, she has founded Mango Tribe, Asian American Artists Collective-Chicago, the APIA Spoken Word & Poetry Summit, I Was Born With Two Tongues and the MONSOON fine arts journal. Esguerra tours extensively. She aches for home, a good pair of ass-kicking shoes, and poetry by Audre Lorde. She is proud to call Chicago home but knows the journey never really ends for the refugee. Check out her work at www.atomicshogun.com
Kay Barrett is one of the most involved women in Chicago's spoken word and
activist community. Her work explores the intricacies of political economy
and mother-daughter relationships as well as tackling LGBTQ existence,
power constructions, and emerging identities that create complicated and
empowering poems. She has worked as an organizer for Ladyfest Midwest,
Beyondmedia, the Queer as Folk Fest, The Lesbian Theater Initiative, the
Batey Urbano, the Asian Artists Collective, and Chicago's Dyke March.
Stages and venues where she has performed include the Guild Complex and
Hot house. In 2003 she opened for Anna Fermin and her band, Trigger
Gospel. Kay has worked with youth in various organizations and continues
to teach poetry as a means of political change and resistance. Kay is a
recent escapee of the academy with a B.A. in Political Science &
Gender/Women's Studies from DePaul University. In addition, She has
showcased her work via drag performance and spoken word in Ireland's 2004
Lesbian Arts Festival. She is also published in the anthology, Mother
Tongues. Check out her work at her very own fancy smancy website:
www.kay.printedmatter.net
Sarwat Rumi is a bilingual Bengali American Muslim who has been writing since she could read. She has a B.A. in South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Sarwat works toward social justice as a vigilante poet, teaching artist, and performance activist. Sarwat's features include the Asian American Jazz Festival (2004), Women OutLoud (2003, 2004), and the Guild Complex, where she humbly shared the stage with Adrienne Rich (2003). Sarwat's craft as solo artist, sister in Mango Tribe, and vocalist for the experimental music duo, Serpent Feline, takes her far from Chicago on a regular basis, but her words can always be found in the Wicked Alice Poetry Journal and in the upcoming anthology, North American Muslim Women Re-Define War.
Sharmili Majmudar is a queer Chicago-based South Asian artist, social justice worker and daughter of Gujarati Indian immigrants. Sharmili makes trouble and finds community as a member of Mango Tribe as well as doing some poetic rabble rousing of her own on stages and in alleyways and living rooms in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Honolulu, Minneapolis and Chicago. Her poetry has appeared in Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America, Shakti Kee Awaaz: Voices of Strength and Riksha and she is a past resident at the Norcroft Writing Retreat for Women. Sharmili is a founding member of Khuli Zaban, a West Asian/South Asian lesbian, bisexual, transgender women's network. She has twice participated in Transforming Silence Into Action, a gathering of APIA queer anti-violence activists and allies, most recently in September 2004. Currently Sharmili serves as Women's Program Director at Sarah's Inn, a domestic violence organization based in Oak Park, Illinois.
jennifer cendaña armas is a pangaean actor, singer, dancer, writer, violinist, and community worker from corona/jackson heights, queens. her poetry has been featured throughout the states, england, and vancouver including the nuyorican poets cafe, sistahood festival, lincoln center's la casita, and bristol's ladyfest. publications include awol, aesthetica, x, monsoon, and nyu's review of law and social change. theatre credits include skinimin12 (playwright, actor), njpac's planet hip hop, are we democracy? with urban bush women, and queens theatre in the park's black theatre festival. she works with youth in the lower east side and teaches arts/activism/politics workshops in schools, prisons, and community centers across the country. she is a member of the blackout arts collective and mango tribe families.
Jill Aguado is a Chicago Mango currently building with her Tribe sisters as a road/stage manager and performer. She has been blessed to have grown in so many ways since becoming a part of the collective. She believes in the strength of family and the power of voice. Jill is currently working for a leadership program, interested in teamwork and creating cross-cultural dialogue.
Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai has rocked venues across the country including the Nuyorican Poets Café, the House of Blues, the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and two seasons of “Russell Simmons Presents HBO Def Poetry." She continues to tour with Mango Tribe and performed in the world premiere of "We Got Issues!” directed by Rha Goddess and Lenora Pace. An Illinois Arts Council Award recipient, Kelly hosted the National Poetry Slam Asian American Showcase, the National Asian American Spoken Word Summit, and Chicago's Louder Than A Bomb Teen Poetry Festival. She is the author of one chapbook, Inside Outside Outside Inside.
Born in Taipei, and raised in Alaska, Juliana Pegues is a writer, performer, and community organizer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work has been published in various journals and anthologies, and she appears regularly in Twin Cities' theater productions and at spoken word venues. Her one-woman shows include Made in Taiwan (Walker Art Center), First the Forest (Jerome Foundation Performance Art Commission), and Fifteen (Intermedia Arts Absolute Originals Series). Most recently, she was a co-playwright and actor in the Mama Mosaic production Bride/price, and a collaborating playwright in Mizna's production With Love from Ramallah.
amy treesa paul seeks a world outside 9-5s and 501c(3)s.. beyond rent checks and identity claims and exclusive spaces and practicality and processed food.. she seeks revolution as music as poetry.. as conversations that happen on the streets as much as in the intimate and difficult spaces of home and family and community.. through her creative work, she seeks to locate the beginnings of memories, stories, and histories- their intersections and their truths- while trying to imagine and sometimes reinvent endings. she is inspired by what has been told and spinned and also what has been silenced among various places she has called home, including florida, chicago, new york, india and dreamland.. she seeks a world where imagination and freedom take precedent rather than luxuries of the privileged.. in her day-to-day, she is entrenched in academia and nonprofit life and fighting the white man and occasional temptations for fast food.. and other struggles she seeks escape..
Varuni Tiruchelvam is a Tamil Sri Lankan American Queer Woman cellist and educator for social change who hopes to grow healthy systems and to share nourishment and nurturing with many people and the land. Her favorite recent moments have involved playing the cello while students and co-teachers free-styled and leading sexual identity workshops with youth.
Emily Chi-hua Chang is a performance artist, writer, and musician who currently resides in New York City. A masters student in performance studies at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, she also comprises one-quarter of the Chicago-based panAsian spoken word group, I Was Born With Two Tongues, which was recently named in A. Magazine's "A List" of 2001's top 25 most influential Asian Americans. Her writing has appeared in Blu Magazine, the Columbia Poetry Review, A. Magazine, and Asianweek.com; and her voice has appeared in several spoken word/music albums, including Broken Speak and hip hop albums, Typical Cats and Denizen Kane's Tree City Legends. Recently seen at The Kitchen (NY) in Fred Ho's avant-garde jazz opera, Warrior Sisters: Adventures of Asian and African Womyn Warriors, she was also co-writer/director of Mangoes, Cigarettes, and My Mama's Hands, the first Mango Tribe production, and the 2002 production of Sisters in the Smoke at Chicago's Vittum Theater.
San Tong navigates her existence thru subways, highways, and byways thru her submergence into the city she calls home, NYC. Besides Mango Tribe, she's also been an active member of the Ohms Media, a Collective that is currently producing a documentary called “Divided We Stand” about two people's lives who have been inextricably involved with War with Iraq. The documentary follows the lives of a conservative marine and an anti-war photojournalist. San's visual art includes an origami mobile and video/film installations for different artshows. She has also done various projects with a film group called Reel Sweet Betty and was the literary manager for 5th Night Screenplay and Short Film Series at the Nuyorican Poets Café. By day she is a media planner and The History Channel and IKEA accounts take up most of her time. She likes fiery dragons.
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