The New York Premiere film screening of LIGHT

presents

The New York Premiere film screening of LIGHT

Lynn Huang, photo by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang

Followed by talk back with

choreographer/dancer Lenora Lee, filmmaker/musician Tatsu Aoki, composer/saxophonist Francis Wong

Inspired by the life of Bessie M. Lee (1894 – 1955), who, after migrating to New York City, spent two years in indentured servitude, “Light” is a film in which dance, memory, music and poetry collide in a visual and aural landscape; a meditation on women being propelled into the unknown by courage and faith to risk their lives and everything they have for freedom. In “Light”, Aoki and Lee highlight the lives of women including Lee, who through the resilience and triumph over unimaginable experiences were grounding forces in the creation of the New York Chinatown community in the early 1900s.

Discussants:

David Henry Hwang, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts in the Faculty of the Arts, Columbia University and

Karen Shimakawa, Associate Professor, Performance Studies, New York University

Tuesday, April 11, 2017, 5pm
Casa Hispanica
Columbia University
612 West 116th Street
New York, NY 10027

Organized by The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality, and the Department of Music.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Dance at Barnard College, the Center for Ethnomusicology, the Center for Jazz Studies, the Heyman Center for the Humanities, and the Society of Fellows for the Humanities.