AAPI Voices Returns this Fall!
APAC is excited to bring back it’s popular storytelling slam once more. AAPI Voices returns this Fall for a third consecutive year. The event titled “Crossing Borders” aligns with APAC’s 2021 theme and will explore the topics of heritage, histories, (re)connection and renewal.
This year’s event will take place virtually on Saturday, November 13 at 7:30 PM EST. The line-up includes stories, music, dance and poetry from Alexandra Palting, Claudia Bolaños, Natyabhoomi School of Dance, Tuyet Pham and Jon Jon Johnson, with a special guest performance by Korean-American Baltimore R&B artist EN’B. Improv artist and writer Sam Brunner returns to emcee the slam.
AAPI Voices will be produced in collaboration with The Hustling Creative. This event is part of a fundraising campaign for APAC, which is a fiscally sponsored program of Fusion Parternships. All tickets are considered a tax deductible donation to the organization.
Special thanks to sponsors Robert W. Deutsch Foundation and The Hoffberger Family Philanthropies, who helped make this event possible.
Tickets for AAPI Voices will go on sale Wednesday, November 3, 2021. Stay tuned for more information!
AAPI Voices: Crossing Borders Performers
Our Emcee
Sam Brunner is a writer, improviser, and actress based in Baltimore, MD. She is a member of the Asian-American improv team A++ and has studied with the Baltimore Improv Group, Magnet Theater, Upright Citizens Brigade, and World’s Greatest Improv School and is a graduate of The Second City’s satire writing program. Her work has been featured in Grub Street Literary Magazine and Weekly Humorist.
Our Special Guest
EN'B sings of Han as their diaspora blues. Born in Koreatown Los Angeles but calling Baltimore their home, they explore the dissonance between pain of diaspora dysphoria through their music inspired by ancestral & traditional Korean music, Rhythm and Blues music of the Black diaspora as well as Korean tunes their dad loudly sung on family road trips. They speak about ‘Han’ -- “a theorized culture-bound syndrome in that denotes a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of insurmountable odds, the overcoming of which is beyond the nation's own capabilities. It connotes aspects of lament and unavenged injustice. “ They have worked with the Red Emma's Collective, Fusion Partnerships, 0Zone collective to create platforms for POC Artists, and the North Avenue Knowledge Exchange for free community workshops in Baltimore City. They have performed on stages in Baltimore, MD including, Creative Alliance, The Crown, Metro Gallery, Wind-Up Space, and the Kennedy Center. They are currently fundraising for and working on their debut EP.
Our Storytellers
The Natyabhoomi School of Dance is located in Potomac, MD & this year we will celebrate the 27th Anniversary of the school. Deepti Mukund Navile, is the Founder & Artistic Director of the Natyabhoomi School of Dance. Her sister Shruthi Mukund is the Artistic and Outreach Director of the school. The school has performed at many prestigious venues all over the US and India including the Strathmore Music Center, Barns at Wolf Trap, Kennedy Center, Karthik Fine Arts, Chennai, to name a few. Natyabhoomi has presented many unique thematic productions and dance dramas - Surya, Meghdhoot, Andal, Kumara Sambhavam, Geetha Govindam, Ritumala, AUM, Ishani, etc. Natyabhoomi collaborated with Sandra Atkinson of the Light Switch Dance Theater and the famous flautist Deepak Ram to create the 'The Girl Child Project' which is an endeavor to promote women empowerment through the Arts. In April 2017, Natyabhoomi dancers also presented Geeta Govindam at the 9th American Natya Festival at St. Louis, MO. During the pandemic, Nataybhoomi presented many virtual live & recorded shows for various organizations in the US and India. Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center also presented a virtual recording of Natyabhoomi dancers & a clip of which was also shown on National CBS Sunday News.
Alexandra Palting (AEA, she/her/hers) has performed around the Washington, DC area at theatres such as Olney Theatre Center, Imagination Stage, and The Keegan Theatre and, most recently, in the Labor Heritage Foundation and Working In DC’s celebratory performance of Working at BLM Plaza. She is currently writing, composing and preparing to perform an original musical to take place at The Kennedy Center in February 2022. She is also a screen actor who can be seen in independent films and in productions for clients like Apple, the NIH, and Home Depot, as well as an audiobook narrator and producer who can be found on various titles on Audible. She studied at the University of Delaware, RADA, and Harvard Online Business School. Through her business, The Hustling Creative, she supports nonprofits through storytelling, having raised over $50,000 for nonprofits since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and empowers young professionals as they pursue a career in the arts through private coaching and engagements at universities and conferences across the country.
Claudia Bolaños is a content creator from the Washington, DC Metro region. Her interests include: filmmaking, art, music, and childhood education. At age 9 she started learning the erhu. Living in Hong Kong at the time, she began practicing with traditional Chinese folk songs, while developing a broader understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture. Her general musical tastes also include classical, pop, and soundtrack. Currently Claudia makes videos for non-profit organizations, while finishing a degree in Instructional Design and Technology. Meanwhile she is also slowly getting back into music. Keep an eye—and ears—out for more music from her in the future! In her spare time Claudia enjoys: music, cycling, swimming, arts and crafts, cooking, visiting parks, and making music videos.
Jon Jon is a wearer of too many hats. A multidisciplinary artist in the DMV area, Jon Jon has worked as a Director, Actor, Deviser, Playwright, Dramaturg, Musician, Educator, Activist, Casting Consultant, Anti-Oppression Consultant, Contract Specialist, and Journalist. His credits include, but are not limited to, Imagination Stage, The Welders, Avant Bard, Flying V, LiveArt DC, Pallas Theatre Collective, Pinky Swear, 1st Stage, Forum Theatre, Silver Spring Stage, and many others. He is also a professional Tabletop Game Runner, and is a self proclaimed Pokemon Master. Love to ET, KH, RT, SWA, DS, RB, and MB.
TUYET THI PHAM is a Helen Hayes Award-winning actor living in Washington, DC. After earning her Masters, she moved to Washington, DC to become an Artistic Fellow at the famed Living Stage Theatre Company at Arena Stage. Following her fellowship, she has worked as a stage, television, film, and print actor, director, and writer for over twenty years and has been seen in over 40 productions in the Baltimore-Washington DC area that include roles at Centerstage, Everyman Theatre, Olney Theatre, Constellation Theatre Company, RepStage, Roundhouse Theatre, Imagination Stage, Signature Theatre, The HUB Theatre, NextStop Theatre, The Inkwell, Ford’s Theatre, The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Arena Stage, and The Capital Fringe Festival. She returned to her alma mater in 2016 to serve as a guest professor of movement, and mentor for the students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She has also worked with Perseverance Theatre in Alaska and The Nebraska Shakespeare Festival. She is a proud company member of Bodywise Dance which has allowed her to continue her efforts as an activist for inclusion and social justice. As a core member, she has worked to devise “perforums;” that mix elements of theatre and dance with specific social justice issues. Produced as a series called Women with Sword, the show has devised productions for the National School Lunch Program and the International Women's Forum in Brazil, tackling the issue of Early Child Forced Marriages. Along with Woman with Sword, Bodywise has partnered with MVLE; a partnership that offers performance classes in dance and acting to adult persons with physical and intellectual disabilities. The MVLE performance group stresses inclusion; devising a show every year with an able-bodied/disabled bodied cast that tours the region, proving anyone can be an artist.
About our Producers & Staff
CATRECE ANN TIPON
Co-Executive Director of Asian Pasifika Arts Collective
Catrece Ann Tipon is a Filipino-American nurse, photographer, and choreographer based in Baltimore.
Born in St. Louis and raised in Maryland, Catrece earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and minored in music at Catholic University of America. As her passion for photography grew, she decided to pursue it alongside her nursing career. Catrece values the diverse communities of people that surround her whether she’s taking care of them in the hospital, capturing their personalities through portraits, or teaching them how to use their bodies to tell a story.
As a photographer, she aims to inspire self-confidence and to help clients tap into their beauty, strength, and power as an individual. She loves that portrait photography allows her to meet and learn from people across different backgrounds, which opens her mind to the many facets and complexities of being human.
Catrece has 16 years of formal dance training and is a Grade V Pre-Professional level dancer in the Cecchetti ballet technique. Her education also included Tap, Jazz, Modern, Contemporary, and Hip-Hop. She specializes in Modern and Contemporary dance, which she taught and choreographed for five years during and after college.
Catrece believes that giving artists a platform is imperative for them to tell how they are feeling through their talents.
CORI DIOQUINO
Co-Executive Director of Asian Pasifika Arts Collective
Cori Dioquino is a Filipino-American actor, producer, arts integration educator, and acting coach based in Baltimore and NYC.
Cori is a passionate advocate of stronger Filipinx and Asian Pacific Indigenous (API) representation in American arts and entertainment. In 2020, Cori helped launch the national campaign Unapologetically Asian in response to the growing discrimination towards Asians and Asian Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic.
As a certified arts integration specialist, Cori uses the arts to engage students as they learn core curriculum and empower them to share their stories and actively participate in social change.
Cori is a member of SAG-AFTRA and an Equity Member Candidate. As a trained actor, she has worked on stage and in film and television, most notably appearing on screen in Marvel/Netflix's hit series Daredevil and Season 2 of New Amsterdam.
ALEXandra PALTING
Founder and Owner of The Hustling Creative
[See storyteller bio.]
SHUBHANGI KUCHIBHOTLA
APAC Social Media Manager
Shubhangi graduated from University of Maryland, Baltimore County with a dual degree in BFA Acting and a BA in Business Technology Administration in May 2018. One of her main passions is creating devised work centered around stories that have yet to be shared. Representation in mass media is a hill she will die on!! (Hopefully not die-die because she would like to see the day where underrepresented groups of artists are thriving) She also deeply enjoys making people laugh through her improv comedy. She is a classically trained Indian Dancer, in the art form of Kathak. Dance is something that speaks to her heart and she is always game for moments of fusion and collaboration.
Our Partners and Sponsors
Fusion Partnerships
Fusion Partnerships was formed by a group of individuals with a common mission to bring people together across diverse perspectives and social divides, to build unity and collaboration for social change. Early on after its inception in 1998, Fusion facilitated numerous educational and community workshops and events to help create bridges of understanding to develop individual and organizational capacity in addressing racial disparities and other social justice issues.
Through their facilitation and work in the community, they saw that many individual leaders and groups had great ideas and wanted to build effective programs but lacked access to the nonprofit and capacity building resources as did larger agencies and organizations. Starting in 2003, Fusion began to offer fiscal sponsorship and capacity building support to grassroots community leaders working for social justice in Baltimore. As their fiscal sponsorship program continues to grow, they are able to provide support and opportunity for their programs to share ideas, resources, collaborate and build their capacity.
Asian Pasifika Arts Collective is a fiscally sponsored program of Fusion Partnerships
The Hustling Creative LLC
The Hustling Creative LLC is a professional services company that strives to help artists hustle with vigor and create with abandon. They has given workshops and keynotes at colleges, conferences and studios across the country, all dedicated to helping artists transition from student to professional by bridging the gap between knowledge and wisdom. Post-pandemic, The Hustling Creative is thrilled to partner with Open Circle Theatre for a workshop hosted by The Kennedy Center REACH Cultural Caucus. They were named one of VoyageLA’s Most Inspiring Stories for their work during the pandemic helping artists start their own companies, as well as producing online fundraisers to help communities most affected by COVID-19.
The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation
The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation invests in innovative people, projects, and ideas that improve the quality of life in Baltimore and beyond. The Foundation exists through the generosity of Robert Deutsch and Florence Kadish Deutsch, who believed in giving back to the community, supporting education, and helping others throughout their lives. The Deutsch Foundation sees Baltimore’s cultural sector as a creative ecosystem where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Collaboration, influence, and access allow people to come together and grow together, whether through community spaces, creative hubs, art education, public art, or more. The overall goal in funding smaller organizations and projects is to attract and retain emerging talent, for artists and activists to have jobs, and for organizations to grow and hire staff. The longer term impact is to revitalize Baltimore as a thriving, healthy, and growing creative community.
Hoffberger Family Philanthropies
The mission of the Hoffberger Family Philanthropies is to respond with available resources to unmet needs in the greater Baltimore community with a significant commitment to the Jewish community. The Hoffberger Foundation is led by descendents of Charles and Sarah Hoffberger, Jewish immigrants who established Baltimore as their home in the late 19th century. Reflecting their charity and commitment to community, the Foundation remains focused on providing support that strengthens communities, eases barriers to opportunity, and has a positive impact on the well being of individuals who live in impoverished neighborhoods.
UNAPOLOGETICALLY ASIAN
Unapologetically Asian is the campaign to inspire and empower all generations of Asian and Asian Americans to live with pride in who we are, unapologetically. We are dedicated to uplifting Asian American voices and empowering the new Asian American identity, one that is defiant, positive and proud. Reclaim your power. Be unapologetically you. Visit them at www.unapologeticallyasian.com!
Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists
The Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists (CAATA) envisions a strong and sustainable Asian American theater community that is an integral presence in national culture—evocative of our past, declarative of our present, and innovative towards our future.
Our mission is to advance the field of Asian American theater through a national network of organizations and artists. We collaborate to inspire learning and sharing of knowledge, and resources to promote a healthy, sustainable artistic ecology. As a collective of Asian American theater leaders and artists, we bring together local and regional leaders to work nationally toward our shared values of social justice, artistic diversity, cultural equity and inclusion. We hold national conferences and festivals biennially in different parts of the country, reaching as wide a range of Asian American populations and communities as possible. We survey Asian American theater artists and organizations to find out their foremost concerns. We form alliances with other theater groups of different affinities to advance mutual goals cooperatively and to exchange ideas and strategies.
