Cultural Stage

 

Hoang Anh Dance Group: Hai Duong and Thuy Duong Nguyen-Tran are the co-choreographers of the Hoang Anh Vietnamese Dance Group. For the past twelve years, Hai and Thuy, who are also sisters, have led the group consisting of youth who have performed at many festivals and events in the Twin Cities and beyond. The purpose of the group is to help promote and preserve the Vietnamese culture through song and dance. When they are not teaching dance, Hai and Thuy keep busy as students at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Abdi Phenomenal (°1987, Xamar, Somalia) is an artist a spoken word Artist, teaching artist, actor and a community activist who has been featured at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, New York times, AL-Jazeera and the project dubbed “The Youth/Dhallinyarada” which focused on the lives of Somali-American youth living in North America. A member of the Minnesota Spoken Word Association, He wants to encourage the youth to promote peace and be a voice for themselves and tell their stories to the world. Throughout the tumultuous years of hardships, alienation and finally reluctant assimilation he found recluse in poetry. Inspired by Maya Angelou, Abdi is a second-generation poet who has decided to revive the great poetic tradition of his forefathers through his new freedom found perspective in a diaspora tongue. By investigating language on a meta-level, Abdi Phenomenal tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical and believes in the idea of function following form in a work. Abdi is dedicated to impacting literacy and youth leadership through the art of spoken word.

Ha Family Entertainment and Lion dance Troupe: The high-spirited Ha Family Entertainment troupe was found in 1999, it brings to audiences a unique array of performances, including the daring lion dance with lively percussion, traditional Chinese dance, live band music, singing, and martial arts. Their goal is to build strong family values and maintain cultural traditions by sharing their love of music and dance with the community. The Ha Family has performed at festivals, new year celebrations, schools, state fairs, Mall of America, grand openings, weddings and much more!

SOME HIGHLIGHTS

• In 2009, Ha Family troupe won the FIRST place award in the International Lions Club Annual Parade, representing the China, HongKong and Macau delegation. The 2009 event was held in the United States, in our home State of MN on Nicollet Ave with 15,000 visitors from all over the world.

• Every year, the Ha Family troupe performs for over 10,000 audience members, with nearly 30 performances in the Twin cities and other cities out side of Twin Cities (such as Fergus Falls, St. Peter, Northfield and Wisconsin).

The Ha Family sincerely thanks our audiences and friends for the dozen years of support in sharing traditional arts and culture!

Titambe Drum and Dance Ensemble was established February 2001 in Copenhagen Denmark as a multicultural performing arts organization. We have performed all over Denmark, in Amsterdam, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and various islands in Europe. In 2003, the founder and artistic director Christian Yao Adeti relocated to the United States of America and formed another branch of the Titambe Drum and Dance Ensemble Company in Minnesota - Titambe West African Dance Ensemble. This group has done African dance performance in various venues in Minnesota, as well as in Texas, Chicago, Wisconsin, among others. Titambe West African Dance Ensembles mission is to preserve traditional African drumming and dance heritage as well as promoting cultural understanding. This is done by educating audiences of all ages about different African countries through language, music, and movement for a better appreciation of diversity. Through performances and dance lessons in Minnesota, we are able to reach out to the communities. Titambe Drum and Dance is committed to sharing knowledge, building long lasting relationships with their community and its leaders, and developing professional artists that will produce quality productions. These artists are mainly comprised of Ghanaians, Liberians, Kenyans, Trinidadians as well as American born. Titambe West African Dance Ensemble has a repertoire of over one hundred authentic traditional drumming, dances, music, story telling, dance drama, reggae dancehall, ndombolo, soukous, coupe decale, among others. “Titambe West African Dance Ensemble believes that with traditional dance and drum we can gentle unlock the ancestral vibration that has been covered for centuries, which involves peace, love and unity.”

Diversity Street is a group of women from different republics within the former Soviet Union and the United States. Dancing for pleasure and health. Diversity Street Dancers have been dancing for ten years in the Minneapolis area. Producing and performing for the enjoyment of fellow neighborhood residents, senior centers, both adult and child day care centers and community/ethnic celebrations throughout the Twin Cities and suburbs. Drawing on their various backgrounds the group has developed an extensive repertoire of dances including Russian, Ukranian, Georgian, Jewish, Roma, Country and American Social. Diversity Street Dancers also offer hand made traditional craft items for use as gifts or holiday and party table decorations. Working together the group designs and makes all the costumes needed for their dance productions and also accepts small orders for custom made costumes.

David Zander is a cultural anthropologist and cofounder and coordinator of the Asian Storytellers Alliance. David was born in London, became a teacher, taught in Kenya and the Bahamas. He has had an interest in learning and collecting folktales since his early years as a teacher in London. In 1972 he came to Minnesota as a student to study anthropology, and stayed. David earned a teachers certificate from the University of London and holds a master degree in Anthropology and Education from the University of Minnesota. David has worked for over twenty years helping refugees at the state capitol. Since his retirement from the State Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans where he worked as a field research analyst on issues such as Welfare reform Casino problem gambling and Asian Juvenile Crime Prevention. He has continued assisting the Lao and Karen and collected Karen and Pacific Islander oral histories for the MN Historical Society. He is currently collecting Lao and Karen folktales. This year he was able to publish a small booklet of Lao stories called “The Wolf and the Moon and other Lao folktales. He plans to publish a similar collection of Karen stories “The Bird and the Sun and other Karen folktales this Fall.

Chay Douangphouxay also known as “The Artist Activist” is a Minnesota-based writer, poet, and social activist. She is also a co-founder and co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) - Twin Cities Chapter and serves on the Board of Directors for the South East Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC). In her writings, she weaves together her experience in the Thai refugee camps and the Housing Projects of Northside Minneapolis in tandem with Spoken Word to tell a story of life growing up poor in the United States from the perspective of an Asian American woman. She is a fierce and relentless fighter that won’t take the status quo for an answer. Her first chapbook, Remission: Finding Light in the Midst of Social Darkness was launched in 2012 as an effort to call to action and educate people on the issues of class, gender, and race. Soon after her second book, Tawan: The Sun Girl, a fairytale was published as part of the Reading Together Project to address the lack of cultural relevant AAPI books in the public schools system. Her works have gained notoriety as she has performed at schools, charities, festivals, and stages across the country. Even though she has made some major strides there is still much more work for her to do in pushing boundaries, breaking barriers, and exposing the injustice that exists in our society. But she can’t do this work alone. She would like to invite each and every one of us to take part in this imperative work with her.

Phuoc Thi Minh Tran spent 10 months in a refugee camp in Malaysia before coming to America. In 1983, after a 50-hour Greyhound trip from California to a land called Minnesota, where she believed that she could find the precious treasures in life-education and a safe environment. As the first Vietnamese librarian and a respected storyteller in Minnesota, she has shared her experiences and knowledge of Vietnamese culture at various events, storytelling programs, libraries, and schools throughout the state. In addition, she had dedicated her time to helping new immigrants transition into life in America. Within the Asian community, she is involved in various organizations. Her accomplishments have been acknowledged through several awards and newspaper articles, such as the 2013 Gene and Mary Jacobsen Outstanding Citizen of the Year, 2010-2012- City of Richfield Neighborhood Champion , 2001 U of Minnesota Community Service Award, the 2002 Catalyst Foundation award, the 2005 Recipient of the Asian Pacific Leadership award., and the Curriculum Resources & Programs 2008 Ignite Award.

Hosts Kevin Yang and Kong Vang

About Kevin Yang: Kevin Yang is a spoken word performer from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Kevin is a recent graduate of Hamline University, St. Paul where he also competed on the Hamline University Poetry Slam Team. Through his work, Kevin loves to explore the intersections between being an American and being Hmong. Kevin is also the proud son of two parents who were refugees during the 1970′s.

About Kong Vang: Kong was born in Sacramento, CA but moved to MN and has been here for about 15 years. He currently lives in Champlin. In the upcoming academic year he will be president of Hamline’s Hmong Student Association and finishing his final year with a major in History and minor in Sociology. This summer Kong is interning with the Minnesota Historical Society working on a Hmong History Curriculum kit for teachers at the Minnesota History Museum. He enjoys hanging out with friends, dancing, cooking, and family time.

 

Are you interested in performing at the 2015 TCWRD Celebration? If so, please contact our Planning Committee Chair, Saymoukda at [email protected]

 

Educational Activities

Multimedia Refugee Exhibit:

• Display of cultural artifacts from refugees
• Oral History Project books display courtesy of the Minnesota History Center

Hands-on Activities:

• Traditional Clothing Dress-up with Thuy Duoing & Hai Duong Nguyen-Tran & Free Instant Photo-Op
• Making an Origami basket
• Making a Dragon Puppet
• Making a collage of What Would You Bring? If you had to leave this country at a moment’s notice—as you got word of a chance for flight from tyranny—what would you take with you?
• A world map and dots where each visitor coming to the Refugee tent will leave a footprint/ trace on the world map

Games:

• Zodiac Race
• bau cua cá cop (“squash-crab-fish-tiger”) is a Vietnamese gambling game using three dice

Storytellers:

From Asian Storytellers Alliance we present storytellers David Zander, Chay Douangphouxay, and Phuoc Thi Minh Tran

 

We would like to thank our 2013 performers and our wonderful emcees Anne Sumangil and Brother Simon-Hòa Phan

Hung Vuong Association of Minnesota, Hoang Anh Dance Group, Anh Ha Kieu Nguyen, Diversity Street (Russian, Ukrainian, and Jewish Folk Dancers), Abdi Phenomenal (Somali Spoken Word Artist), Karen Don Dance, Red Hot Peppers (Hmong Dance Group), Zumba Dance, Burmese Dance Group, Karen Thunder Band, Tiyumba (West African Drumming)

We would like to thank our 2013 Education contributors: David Zander, Phuoc Thi Minh Tran, Saymoukda Vongsay, Minal Sahu (Facepainting and Henna), and Maryellen & Beth Murphy (Tile Stories)