Creating Auto-Ethnography For The Stage And Page

Playwright/performer Alvin Eng and author/choreographer Muna Tseng will read from and discuss their current theatrical/literary projects, OUR LAUNDRY, OUR TOWN and IT’S ALL TRUE: GRANDFATHER.

OUR LAUNDRY, OUR TOWN is Eng’s prose expansion of his memoir monologue, “The Last Emperor of Flushing.” The memoir chronicles his growing up in the shadows of the Cold War in a 1970s Chinese Hand Laundry in Flushing, Queens, NYC, to performing his one-man show, The Last Emperor of Flushing, in a former People’s Hall of the Cultural Revolution in his family’s ancestral Guangdong province.

IT’S ALL TRUE: GRANDFATHER is the third dance-theater chapter of Tseng’s “Family Portrait” series. The piece constructs a portrait of myth, object, and dialogue with real and imagined ancestors. Taking Tseng’s paternal grandfather as a departure point, the work spans over 300 years and examines East-West legacy, gender, personal identity and aspirations, cultural alienation and assimilation. Tseng is developing IT’S ALL TRUE: GRANDFATHER as an artist-in-residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The series also includes the Bessie Award-winning and nominated pieces, STELLA and SLUTFORART.