ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
Suheir Hammad
2010-2011
Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis
2009-2010
Susana Lei'ataua
2008-2009
Susana Lei'ataua
2007-2008
DJ Rekha
2006-2007
Regie Cabico
2005-2006
Helen Zia
2004-2005
Fay Chiang
2003-2004
Corky Lee
2002-2003
Keng Sen Ong
2001-2002
David Henry Hwang
2000-2001
Ping Chong
1999-2000
Jessica Hagedorn
1998-1999
Tomie Arai
1997-1998
Annanya Bhattacharjee
1997-1998
Each year, New York University hosts an acclaimed artist to hold residency with its Asian/Pacific/American Institute. Artists-in-Residence are invited to bring their notoriety, artistic work, and history of involvement with the Asian/Pacific American community to NYU. The Artist-in-Residence uses his/her time at A/P/A to create important new work, artistic retrospectives, forums, or conferences. Scholars, fellow artists, and community members familiar or new to the artist's work, gain a unique opportunity to engage with the Artist-in-Residence within a university setting.
YEAR TWO!
Waka
carry me.
Take my bow
guide this prow
to the Island that waits
between two rivers.
Oceans of horizons
Frigate birds signal land …
I’m in the middle of something, in the middle of everything. Manhattan is the kind of island that boasts it all. What it doesn’t have, I have brought with me.
That the Asian/Pacific/American Institute has invited me to stay longer is a relief for which I am eternally grateful. There is much work to be done, and I have only just scratched the surface.
I arrived last Fall with seed from the Orongorongo Ranges, the coast of Te Whanganui-a-Tara, the sludge of Waipori, the peaks of Te Waipounamu, the heat of Manono’s black rocks. I brought images, written and musical notes.
So far this residency has been an incubator, a pressure cooker, a poultice a poultice drawing me and my work out into the open.
There’s been diversity and new depths. I’m cocomposing a score improvising with the finest musicians, have edited a chapter about the Pacific in an elementary school textbook, keynoted for Asian Heritage Month at NYU and at the University of Washington for Polynesian Day; I’ve performed live-to-air from an East Village club, at the Native American and Indigenous Studies conference in Athens, Georgia; at the first Matariki in New York City, at Fulbright’s 60th birthday in D.C. I am inspired to continue the legacy of Dr. Barbara Ann Teer.
This Spring the music, script and visuals were woven together in front of an audience for the first time when we launched the score of Breaking the Surface. No one was keener to find out what would happen.
The Pacific is so easily out of sight and out of mind in New York City. There’s no excuse for this. There are plenty of connections to draw on. Whether or not this is important depends on how global you are. How present you really are right now on Earth. How indigenous are you to the 21st century?
New York City is long overdue an update on its 19th and 20th century perspectives on the Pacific. They’re just so damned sexy.
Why change anything?
My work is not only about realizing what I have brought with me. It is about what I am finding here, who I am finding here, how we are relating, how we are relating, and being absolutely here now with this discovery.
I’m looking forward to you Breaking the Surface with me next Spring, and you’re also invited to the book launch for through windows this Fall. My blog faitala will keep you posted.
Susana Lei'ataua is an actor and a writer. She is the recipient of the New Zealand Fulbright Senior Scholar Award for 2008. Born in Wellington, New Zealand Susana is from generations of orators and story-tellers. She is part of the Lei‘ataua and Taupa‘u families of Manono, Samoa and her mother’s family has been in the Pacific for 200 years. She initially studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, was Rossignol in Marat Sade at the Tribeca Lab, Lysistrata in Lysistrata in Washington Square Park; and under the banner Musumusu performed musical collaborations in downtown theaters and lofts including Lost in the Apple with members of the Groove Collective. Her solo dramatic poem through windows was produced by the A/P/A Institute in 2003 and as part of the New York Pacifika Film Festival in 2004. A recording of it is archived at Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa - the National Library of New Zealand. Lei‘ataua was in the Aotearoa/New Zealand delegation at the 9th Pacific Arts Festival in Palau in 2004. She has been a journalist, radio newsreader, talk show host, television presenter, producer, editor; a communications consultant for New Zealand government agencies and the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and project manager of the Ngai Tahu Leadership Programme.
Appropriately in his Four Quartets, Eliot prescribed that: "...last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice" That voice is now amongst us, delivered through its powerfully compelling persona, Susana Lei'ataua. Ms. Lei ‘ataua recently escorted an enchanted audience in Washington, D.C. on a magical malaga (voyage), to witness an intimate vocal reunion with her Samoan grandmother (Tina ole ‘aiga), whose recorded singing of pese o anamua Susana joined, imbuing all in their melodious, mystical communion. Ms. Lei ‘ataua’s ‘aiga (forebears), must, however, take pride in her vivid vocal imagery of ancient Pacific Island sagas seeking wary alignment with the modernity of present-day New York. Perhaps they know that their descendant's voice of forceful elegance will articulate an environment, where, again to employ Eliot's Quartets, "…both a new world And the old [are] made explicit, understood.”
Peter S. Watson — ONZM
Faced with the flux of today's global migration ofideas, images, and voices, it is easy to feel disoriented and anomic. Lei ‘ataua is a sure-footed guide through this helter-skelter, delivering mental serenity when we are most at sea, and emotional and political vitality where we least expect it.
Andrew Ross — Chair, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, Professor of American Studies, New York University
Susana Lei ‘ataua is the living embodiment of the walking form and feeling inherent in the African wisdom and creativity of all indigenous, soul filled cultures and lifestyles. It is, and was, my honor and privilege to have met her and to have been able to include her and her amazing talent in the work of the National Black Theatre's alternative learning environment, in Harlem. We most graciously welcome you to your Harlem "Home away from home."
Dr. Barbara Ann Teer — Founder & CEO, National Black Theatre's Institute of Action Arts, Harlem, NYC
I cannot avoid the truth that is so prevalent, similar, different but egalitarian in the presentation of the peoples of the Pacific and the peoples of the U.S. The noticeable shift of awareness that occurs in the audiences captures the innocence and chases the ignorance out of existence. Your work, in gratis, is the connection, the reality and perception of ancient thoughts, created through your music, is a must journey.
Tiokasin Ghosthorse — Cheyenne River Lakota (Sioux) Nation of South Dakota, Musician, Host of WBAI's First Voices Indigenous Radio, NYC
Susana was a most worthy recipient of a highly-competitive and prestigious Fulbright Senior Scholar Award when she applied back in 2007. Her selection was a nobrainer for the selection committee. Her first year at NYU’s Asian/Pacific/American Institute has clearly been successful and invaluable for the Institute and for Susana. Her work Breaking the Surface is already making waves — it’s a powerful and wonderful piece — and will be awesome when the full work in completed and released to the world in 2009! Fulbright NZ is extremely proud of Susana!
Mele Wendt — Executive Director, Fulbright New Zealand, Te Tuapapa Matauraga o Aotearoa me Amerika (http://www.fulbright.org.nz)
New Zealand Consulate-General including the recent and successful Matariki Festival. We are most grateful for her contributions, and value the opportunity she provides the people of New York to experience the Pacific through another lens.
Sarah L. Smith — Consular Officer, New Zealand Consulate-General, New York
Susana Lei'ataua (2008 - 2009)
YEAR TWO!
Waka
carry me.
Take my bow
guide this prow
to the Island that waits
between two rivers.
Oceans of horizons
Frigate birds signal land …
I’m in the middle of something, in the middle of everything. Manhattan is the kind of island that boasts it all. What it doesn’t have, I have brought with me.
That the Asian/Pacific/American Institute has invited me to stay longer is a relief for which I am eternally grateful. There is much work to be done, and I have only just scratched the surface.
I arrived last Fall with seed from the Orongorongo Ranges, the coast of Te Whanganui-a-Tara, the sludge of Waipori, the peaks of Te Waipounamu, the heat of Manono’s black rocks. I brought images, written and musical notes.
So far this residency has been an incubator, a pressure cooker, a poultice a poultice drawing me and my work out into the open.
There’s been diversity and new depths. I’m cocomposing a score improvising with the finest musicians, have edited a chapter about the Pacific in an elementary school textbook, keynoted for Asian Heritage Month at NYU and at the University of Washington for Polynesian Day; I’ve performed live-to-air from an East Village club, at the Native American and Indigenous Studies conference in Athens, Georgia; at the first Matariki in New York City, at Fulbright’s 60th birthday in D.C. I am inspired to continue the legacy of Dr. Barbara Ann Teer.
This Spring the music, script and visuals were woven together in front of an audience for the first time when we launched the score of Breaking the Surface. No one was keener to find out what would happen.
The Pacific is so easily out of sight and out of mind in New York City. There’s no excuse for this. There are plenty of connections to draw on. Whether or not this is important depends on how global you are. How present you really are right now on Earth. How indigenous are you to the 21st century?
New York City is long overdue an update on its 19th and 20th century perspectives on the Pacific. They’re just so damned sexy.
Why change anything?
My work is not only about realizing what I have brought with me. It is about what I am finding here, who I am finding here, how we are relating, how we are relating, and being absolutely here now with this discovery.
I’m looking forward to you Breaking the Surface with me next Spring, and you’re also invited to the book launch for through windows this Fall. My blog faitala will keep you posted.
Susana Lei'ataua is an actor and a writer. She is the recipient of the New Zealand Fulbright Senior Scholar Award for 2008. Born in Wellington, New Zealand Susana is from generations of orators and story-tellers. She is part of the Lei‘ataua and Taupa‘u families of Manono, Samoa and her mother’s family has been in the Pacific for 200 years. She initially studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, was Rossignol in Marat Sade at the Tribeca Lab, Lysistrata in Lysistrata in Washington Square Park; and under the banner Musumusu performed musical collaborations in downtown theaters and lofts including Lost in the Apple with members of the Groove Collective. Her solo dramatic poem through windows was produced by the A/P/A Institute in 2003 and as part of the New York Pacifika Film Festival in 2004. A recording of it is archived at Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa - the National Library of New Zealand. Lei‘ataua was in the Aotearoa/New Zealand delegation at the 9th Pacific Arts Festival in Palau in 2004. She has been a journalist, radio newsreader, talk show host, television presenter, producer, editor; a communications consultant for New Zealand government agencies and the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and project manager of the Ngai Tahu Leadership Programme.
Appropriately in his Four Quartets, Eliot prescribed that: "...last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice" That voice is now amongst us, delivered through its powerfully compelling persona, Susana Lei'ataua. Ms. Lei ‘ataua recently escorted an enchanted audience in Washington, D.C. on a magical malaga (voyage), to witness an intimate vocal reunion with her Samoan grandmother (Tina ole ‘aiga), whose recorded singing of pese o anamua Susana joined, imbuing all in their melodious, mystical communion. Ms. Lei ‘ataua’s ‘aiga (forebears), must, however, take pride in her vivid vocal imagery of ancient Pacific Island sagas seeking wary alignment with the modernity of present-day New York. Perhaps they know that their descendant's voice of forceful elegance will articulate an environment, where, again to employ Eliot's Quartets, "…both a new world And the old [are] made explicit, understood.”
Peter S. Watson — ONZM
Faced with the flux of today's global migration ofideas, images, and voices, it is easy to feel disoriented and anomic. Lei ‘ataua is a sure-footed guide through this helter-skelter, delivering mental serenity when we are most at sea, and emotional and political vitality where we least expect it.
Andrew Ross — Chair, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, Professor of American Studies, New York University
Susana Lei ‘ataua is the living embodiment of the walking form and feeling inherent in the African wisdom and creativity of all indigenous, soul filled cultures and lifestyles. It is, and was, my honor and privilege to have met her and to have been able to include her and her amazing talent in the work of the National Black Theatre's alternative learning environment, in Harlem. We most graciously welcome you to your Harlem "Home away from home."
Dr. Barbara Ann Teer — Founder & CEO, National Black Theatre's Institute of Action Arts, Harlem, NYC
I cannot avoid the truth that is so prevalent, similar, different but egalitarian in the presentation of the peoples of the Pacific and the peoples of the U.S. The noticeable shift of awareness that occurs in the audiences captures the innocence and chases the ignorance out of existence. Your work, in gratis, is the connection, the reality and perception of ancient thoughts, created through your music, is a must journey.
Tiokasin Ghosthorse — Cheyenne River Lakota (Sioux) Nation of South Dakota, Musician, Host of WBAI's First Voices Indigenous Radio, NYC
Susana was a most worthy recipient of a highly-competitive and prestigious Fulbright Senior Scholar Award when she applied back in 2007. Her selection was a nobrainer for the selection committee. Her first year at NYU’s Asian/Pacific/American Institute has clearly been successful and invaluable for the Institute and for Susana. Her work Breaking the Surface is already making waves — it’s a powerful and wonderful piece — and will be awesome when the full work in completed and released to the world in 2009! Fulbright NZ is extremely proud of Susana!
Mele Wendt — Executive Director, Fulbright New Zealand, Te Tuapapa Matauraga o Aotearoa me Amerika (http://www.fulbright.org.nz)
New Zealand Consulate-General including the recent and successful Matariki Festival. We are most grateful for her contributions, and value the opportunity she provides the people of New York to experience the Pacific through another lens.
Sarah L. Smith — Consular Officer, New Zealand Consulate-General, New York