Directors: Marian Yalini Thambynayagam and Kai-Ti Kao
Facilitators of creative process: Marian Yalini Thambynayagam and Kai-Ti Kao
Producers: Anida Yoeu Esguerra and Sarwat Rumi in collaboration with Henry Street Settlement
Stage Manager: Vivienne Tan
Assistant Stage Manager: Jill Aguado
Production Design: Niluka Samarasekera
Video Artist: San Tong
Production Assistant: Amy Paul
Advisors: Emily Chang, Ann Poochareon
Writers/Performers: Anida Yoeu Esguerra, Kelly Tsai, Lani Montreal, Sarwat Rumi, Sharmili Majmudar, Vanessa DeGuia, Jennifer Cendana Amas, Kai-Ti Kao, Marian Yalini Thambynayagam, Annelize Machado, Juliana Pegues, Pradeepa Jeevamanoharan
Video Documentation: Ann Poochareon
Bios:
marian yalini thambynayagam is a 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.
Kai-Ti Kao was born and raised in Taiwan for 18 years. She came to America in 2000. She is very happy to be working with Mango Tribe. She enjoys working with a group of APIA women with talents in different fields. She is also working with another theatre group called The Conciliation Project. She would like to thank her family, mentor and good friends for their support!
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
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.
Ann Poochareon suffers multiple identity crisis, overachieving syndrome, and has too complicated of a life story. She does everything there is to do on a computer and is helplessly addicted to the Internet. Her work includes writing, photography, video, websites, interactive media, 3D graphics, and a lot of computer code. People find her at miserychick.net, where she rants on various topics and exposes private life on a daily basis. Currently a graduate student at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at Tisch/NYU, Ann plans to integrate new media and other technical mumbo jumbo into theater performance. She lives in New York City and hardly ever sleeps. Ann dedicates everything she does to her mother, even if she doesn't understand them.
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.
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.
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.”
Pradeepa Jeevamanoharan is the co-founder/director of Diaspora Flow a non-profit arts organization dedicated to providing a forum for artists of color and facilitating connections between artists and youth. She has also a danced with Women in Motion and has debuted solo work in New York and Minneapolis. She has been involved as an intern with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights and Little Earth Residents Association. She graduated from University of Minnesota in 2000. She is currently working with youth focusing on Art and Actvism in the Twin Cities.
San Tong navigates her existence thru subways, highways, and byways thru her submergence into the city she calls home, NYC. Besides Mangotribe, 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.
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.
Vanessa De Guia rebels against the miseducation of all children of color. As a teaching artist for Young Asians With Power (YAWP), Vanessa is at heart a community server and advocate for women and children in Chicago. She is a certified medical advocate for rape victims and serves on the board of the Asian American Artists Collective-Chicago. Recently she finished her first year of teaching at Hope College Prep in Englewood and is one year closer to obtaining her MEd in Curriculum/Instruction at National-Louis University. She believes that commitment to love and spiritual fulfillment is the key to freedom and peace of mind. She was last seen in Pintig's musical, "Dreamweavers."
Vivienne Diawara Tan is a filipinachinese american post- post- post- post-feminism feminist born in Chicago, raised on hip hop and adobo, living for herself and her peoples. When she’s not trying to sneak back into the world of higher education, viv masters the of art of escapism through painting, writing, soulsearching, head nodding, selective hearing, jasmine incense burning and Mango Tribe conspiring. vivienne has recently been sighted kicking ass as stage manager and performer for the Chicago premiere of Mango Tribe’s “Sisters In The Smoke” as well as the collaborative multimedia project “Register THIS!” for the Asian American Artists Collective-Chicago.
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..
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