Project Description
In this one-person piece, Cori Dioquino explores the complexities of her own identity as she navigates through the three major identity crises of her life. Crisis Mode: Living Pilipino in America weaves Dioquino’s personal history with that of her motherland - The Philippines - and its complicated relationship to the United States through dance, movement, music and art. With each crisis, she shares her experiences growing up an immigrant in the “Land of the Free”, coping with hidden mental health issues, and her gradual transition from “Proud Pinoy” to “Generic Asian”. 

Growing up a Filipino immigrant in the States, I never saw myself represented in the art and media that I consumed. For that reason, I always create with my Filipino immigrant community in my heart. As an artist and educator, theirs are the stories that I am most passionate about sharing. I always ask myself as a creator if the art I am presenting is something that I would have needed to witness and experience as a young immigrant child living in the United States. Crisis Mode: Living Pilipino in America is definitely something I wish had been available to me as a young child and adolescent. I hope that through this project, I can empower other young Filipino immigrants and Filipino Americans to discover more about their histories and create art that represents who they are as individuals, as well as the community that is raising them.

My ultimate goal in creating Crisis Mode is to use theater and my personal story as a Filipino Immigrant American as the vehicle to present the strategically forgotten parts of American history - specifically Philippine-American history. I hope that through this series I can empower other Filipino and Filipino-Americans to be more curious about their own histories. I also wish to use this piece to instigate important conversations centered on complex topics such as immigrant experiences, anti-Asian rhetoric and the ways in which American imperialism has influenced immigration and anti-Asian violence. With Crisis Mode, I aim to make the audiences’ experiences as immersive and interactive as possible through the use of arts integration tactics and tools.

Written by Katelynn Kenney

Directed by Cara Hinh
Produced by Asian Pasifika Arts Collective, Cohesion Theater and The Tank NYC

Pizza or spam? Important, not important. American, immigrant. Tornkid just wants to belong: at school, at home, in their own skin. So what does Tornkid do? Tear themselves in two. Tricky thing is, their other half runs away into a land both achingly familiar and unfamiliar. Take part in Tornkid's elemental journey to literally find themself, inspired by several Southeast Asian and Pacific Indigenous folktales

Background

Tornkid was produced out of a desire to create a children’s theater production that addressed and represented the experiences of immigrant children and second generation children of immigrants. The play, which was commissioned by Cori Dioquino and the Asian Pasifika Arts Collective, centers on the mythology and folklore of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Throughout the devising process, the creative team focused on themes embracing feminine and non-binary identity and the power of being “Other”.

The script for Tornkid was written by NYC-based Filipino-American playwright Katelynn Kenney. It made its world premiere in Baltimore at Cohesion Theater in May of 2019. In August of 2019, Tornkid was produced in NYC at The Tank’s Ladyfest - a festival featuring new work created by and for women and non-binary individuals.

Asian Pasifika Arts Collective and The Strand Theater Company are partnering to present  the AAPI Women’s Voices Theater Festival, comprising six original short plays by Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women-identifying playwrights. The aim of the Festival is to bring awareness to the stories and experiences of AAPI women, transgender, nonbinary, and gender fluid individuals throughout the United States, as well as highlight the work of AAPI writers, actors and directors. The Festival takes place in celebration of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month 2022.

About the Festival:

Following a nationwide call for submissions in the Fall of 2021, and subsequent review and selection by a collective panel of readers from both host organizations, the Festival will feature two one-act and four ten-minute plays from six finalists in a book-in-hand or staged reading format. All plays submitted to the Festival were required to follow a set of guidelines, including the length of the play, the number of allowed characters, and the inclusion of specific plot “ingredients,” such as a misunderstanding, a memory, and a family recipe. 

The Festival will showcase between two and five plays during each performance, due to their varying lengths. In order to experience all six productions, we encourage our patrons to attend the Festival more than once. In addition to the play performances, the Festival will include two panel discussions. The first discussion, titled Food Culture and the AAPI Community, will be hosted on Sunday, May 15, following the matinee performance. The second panel on Friday, May 20 (following the evening performance) will be a conversation with the playwrights and directors of the festival. Refreshments will be offered to the attendees.

The featured plays represent cultures and heritages across the AAPI diaspora including Armenia, Iran, South Korea and China.

The Festival participants are:

• Spaghetti Lo Mein – by Elizabeth Ung, directed by Cori Dioquino
• Hot Pot at the End of the World – by Karen Li, directed by Momo Nakamura
• Mother Mandu – by Libbey Kim, directed by Cori Dioquino
• Support – by Robin Berl, directed by Momo Nakamura
• Cousins and Soup – by Lyra Nalan, directed by Karen Li
• Secret Ingredient by Emily Kate Avakian, directed by Karen Li

0874 (Eight hundred seventy-four) is named for the number of letters that Alexandra's grandparents wrote to each other during a three-year long-distance courtship between the U.S. and the Philippines. In letter one, Alexandra's grandmother Paz wanted to be a nun. By the eight hundred and seventy-fourth letter, she moved across the world to start a new life with Alexandra's grandfather Jun. The story oscillates between the world of the letters and the present day. The script is taken from the couple’s letters, and the music draws from various artistic influences spanning contemporary singer-songwriter, indigenous Filipino music, Western classical music, musical theatre, and American jazz.

As a co-producer for 0874: A Filipino American Love Story, I was incredibly passionate about bringing Alex's one-woman piece to the DMV area. In so many ways, her lolo and lola's story as Filipinos separated by immigration reflected my own personal history as an immigrant. I am so incredibly proud of the work that we were able to do in support of her premiere at the Kennedy Center. We commissioned the mini-documentary following Alex and her creative team as they worked to bring 0874 to life; originally intended as an independently produced documentary, it was eventually produced by the Kennedy Center. 0874 has since been performed on stages throughout the DMV and is now being produced by She NYC in August 2023.