Projects

“Formosa” is an evening-length spoken word choreo-solo-show that examines cultural identity, beauty, globalization, and plastic surgery via the history of Barbie doll manufacturing in Taiwan. The project’s genesis sparked last year when I found myself inexplicably drawn to a book on the history of Barbie from her debut in the U.S. in 1959. Weeks later, while performing at the North American Taiwanese Women’s Association Conference in St. Louis, I learned that Barbie dolls were actually manufactured for twenty years (1967-1987) in Taishan, Taiwan, close to where my family relocated after fleeing the Communist Revolution in China.
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SAY YOU HEARD MY ECHO is an evening-length spoken word poetry theater project that will be presented in full production with audience dialogues at Asian American Arts Alliance’s Locating the Sacred Festival (September 2012) in NYC. The project explores the impacts of 9/11 on three fictional Asian American women in NYC a decade after the fall of the Twin Towers. Their struggles with survivorship and faith prompt them to call on three female religious icons: Mary Magdalene, Guan Yin, and Aisha.
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“Further She Wrote” is the second collaboration between HBO Def Poet Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and international touring artist and producer Black Cracker, whose beat-making has been featured in VIBE, The New Yorker, Dazed & Confused, Playboy, and XLR8R.
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In a dynamic collaboration between spoken word artist Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, director Jazzmen Lee-Johnson, and producer Alli Maxwell, Moving Earth Productions has produced a spoken word video version of Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai’s “Black, White, Whatever… a witty spoken word poetry call to arms for politicians everywhere to stand up for underrepresented communities, like the Asian Pacific Islander American community and all those who fight to have their voices and lives heard OUT LOUD! For more information on “Black, White, Whatever”‘s online viral distribution campaign, click here.

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In conjunction with San Francisco-based Youth Noise, Moving Earth Productions co-produced the spoken word video “Weapons of Mass Creation” written and performed by Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and directed by Kamilah Forbes.

The spoken word video was commissioned by Youth Noise to be screened at their national youth activism summit tour linking online social networking communities for youth activists with local collaboration and grassroots movement.

View the YouTube video.

“Infinity Breaks” is the first collaboration between HBO Def Poet Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and international touring artist and producer Black Cracker, whose beat-making has been featured in VIBE, The New Yorker, Dazed & Confused, Playboy, and XLR8R.
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