![]() ![]() I was meeting people, thinking, ‘Wow, they’re so generous. Wong: I had many moments when people did porch drop-offs in front of my building in Ktown. Kristina Wong in “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre February 12 through March 12, 2023, a co-production with East West Players.ĬM: I think the ‘”Auntie Sewing Squad”’ shows that when a community comes together, it has the potential to be a life-giving service. And that becomes political because you look at who they tend to be - communities like sex workers or migrants at the border, these communities that are already on the fringe unsupported by the federal government, a lot of communities of color. Rather than offer that labor to people who already could figure out how to get a mask, we need to figure out who get one. At first, it felt like we were just helping our fellow Americans, but it became clear, we have a finite amount of labor to offer. Kristina Wong: I ran the “Auntie Sewing Squad” with the same mentality that I make my work. We were all there, but we weren’t there together.ĬM: And what came of it is you somehow made live (virtual) theater work in the pandemic. The feedback I’m getting is the word “cathartic?” People were like, ‘We haven’t stopped to think about this.’ It feels so refreshing to describe something everybody has experienced, right? I’m not just sharing some weird thing that happened to me. is the first audience where not required to wear masks, but most are, and some are not. How is it performing a show that looks back while the issue still exists? Is that hard? People are still getting infected every day. Kristina Wong in “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre February 12 through March 12, 2023, a co-production with East West Players.ĬM: COVID isn’t over. It’s not people with guns that are going to protect, it’s people with sewing machines. I felt like I was running an army out of my house.ĬM: Collective power can really make such a difference. Farm workers have to breathe in all the air from the California fires - we were able to haggle with this guy in Ktown and get them KN95 masks. People are protesting the murder of George Floyd and we’re sending masks. A lot of the reactions I get, ‘I forgot so much of that!’ All these little memories come up for people.Īs a sewing group, we felt every major crisis on the globe and were able to react with our machines. It was in my house, and you would just see day fourteen, day six, day thirty-three - that’s how I developed it.ĬM: So, the show was building on itself throughout the pandemic. ![]() ![]() About a month in, I created a piece on Zoom. How is it that me, a non-essential performer, is something of the difference between life or death? Why am I fielding calls from health professionals who are scared to go to work? That’s when it became clear I was seeing something that needed to be recorded. I started the “Auntie Sewing Squad” four days because I needed to help. Do you want to relive this?’ Kristina Wong in “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre February 12 through March 12, 2023, a co-production with East West Players. My friends were like, ‘This is gonna be your next show.’ And I said, ‘No one wants to relive this. The first ten days of this was so frantic - running around trying to get materials. It’s not like I’m sitting on a plethora of cotton fabric and elastic. Wong: I saw an article that hospitals needed homesewn masks, I started sewing masks. This is where “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” began.ĬM: How long did it take you to create “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord?” How did the idea of performing a show about your sewing group even come to fruition? Now, in 2023, she is a Pulitzer Prize finalist in drama, and her projects are underlined by her commitment to amplifying underrepresented stories. Wong got her start in live theater in 2006 with “ Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” - a one-woman show about the prevalence of mental illness among Asian American women. In the show, she documents the rise and fall of her pandemic-initiated grassroots coalition “ Auntie Sewing Squad,” a Facebook group dedicated to sewing masks for marginalized groups during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Is America’s chain of command in crisis as inept as the fast fashion corporation is… generally? During “ Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord,” Wong guides her audience towards the answer. “Is America a Banana Republic?” Performance artist Kristina Wong poses this question to her audience multiple times, decked out in a pink and gray camo tank top and a tactical shoulder sash lined with, not weapons of mass destruction, but clothing pins, needles and spools of thread. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |