MOCA Performs – Angel Island: A Multimedia Experience by Huang Ruo

Chinese American composer Huang Ruo makes a profound impact with his debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, presenting Angel Island from January 11-13, 2024. This immersive multimedia performance, which melds opera, theater, dance, and music, revisits the significant yet harrowing history of the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. Operational from 1910 until its closure in 1940, this detention center processed over half a million immigrants, predominantly Chinese migrants who were largely impacted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The experiences of these immigrants, marked by prolonged and brutal detentions, are poignantly expressed through the poetry they left engraved on the facility’s walls.

In collaboration with the Del Sol Quartet, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and archival filmmaker Bill Morrison, and under the direction of Matthew Ozawa, Huang Ruo creates a powerful requiem. This performance interweaves the heart-wrenching narratives of resilience and rebellion of the detainees, resonating deeply in today’s context of heightened violence and discrimination against immigrants, asylum seekers, and Asian communities.