Portals to Asian American Community Mobilization: An Evening of Dance and Dialogue

A photo of three Asian American women dancing

Saturday, April 26 | 8-10pm

In-person: Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110

Tickets (be sure to select the Saturday performance). Use code AARCpromo for $10 off any ticket (limited number of tickets available with this promo code so get your tickets early!). 

Can dance serve as a portal to community mobilization? This special event begins with a performance of Two Doors, a dance choreographed by SanSan Kwan. Two Doors is inspired by a 2021 incident in New York City in which doormen closed their doors just after witnessing an attack on an Asian woman outside on the sidewalk in front of their lobby. When we witness a violent act, a pain is felt through the body. Two Doors explores the viscerality of anti-Asian racism and the sovereignty that we wrest for ourselves in response. Through a choreographic study of the aftermath of violence, this work depicts a journey toward self-possession via relational vulnerability.

The performance will be followed by a panel discussion with SanSan Kwan, Karthick Ramakrishnan, and Ben Wang on Asian American mobilization and the ways that the arts, research, and community healing can all shape each other. Moderated by Colleen Lye, the discussion will include time for audience participation.

Panelists:

Moderated by: Colleen Lye, Chair of the Asian American Research Center and Associate Professor of English, UC Berkeley

Performance/Event Sponsors and Co-Sponsors:

Asian American Research Center; AAPI Data Project; Asian Improv aRts; Asian American & Pacific Islander Health Research Group; Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center; Dance Mission Theater, Department of Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University;Edge on the Square; Fleishhacker Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission; San Francisco Grants for the Arts; UC Berkeley Arts and Humanities; Zellerbach Family Foundation

A collection of logos

Bios

SanSan Kwan is Professor and Chair of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, UC Berkeley. She is the winner of the 2024 Dance Studies Association Mid-Career Award and a 2023 UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science Beatriz Manz Faculty Award. Her recent book, Love Dances: Loss and Mourning in Intercultural Collaboration (Oxford UP, 2021), won the 2022 de la Torre Bueno© Award and a 2023 Isadora Duncan Dance Award. She is also author of Kinesthetic City: Dance and Movement in Chinese Urban Spaces (Oxford UP, 2013). Her article on cartographies of race and the Chop Suey circuit, a group of Asian American cabaret entertainers who toured the nation during the World War II era, is published in TDR. SanSan remains active as a professional dancer; she premiered her own choreography, Two Doors, in 2024. 

Karthick RamakrishnanKarthick Ramakrishnan is founder and director of AAPI Data, a nationally recognized publisher of demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Researcher at UC Berkeley. He has served in leadership roles that span academia, government, public policy, and philanthropy. Ramakrishnan previously served as Executive Director of California 100, a transformative statewide initiative focused on California’s next century. He also served for four years as associate dean of UC Riverside’s School of Public Policy and for 19 years as a professor. Ramakrishnan also served as chair of the California Commission on APIA Affairs for six years. Ramakrishnan has published seven books, including most recently, Citizenship Reimagined(Cambridge, 2020) and Framing Immigrants (Russell Sage, 2016), and has written dozens of op eds and has appeared in nearly 3,000 news stories. He holds a PhD in politics from Princeton.

Photo of Ben WangBen Wang is the Director of Special Initiatives at Asian Health Services (AHS) in Oakland, where he oversees efforts to provide services and holistic support to survivors of violence, advocate for violence prevention strategies, and promote community healing. Prior to his current role at AHS, Ben was the Co-Director of the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, which provides direct support to Asian American prisoners and raises awareness about the impact of mass incarceration and deportation. Ben is also the director of the award-winning documentary film, “Breathin’: the Eddy Zheng Story.”

Colleen_Lye_2025_headshotColleen Lye, Associate Professor of English at UC Berkeley, is Chair of the Asian American Research Center. Her research engages marxism and critical theory, Asian American Studies, and 20th and 21st century literature; she is currently writing a book reconstructing Asian American literary and theoretical contributions to marxism in the United States since the 1960s, with an emphasis on Asian American perspectives into questions of racial capitalism and social reproduction. Most recently, Lye is the coeditor of After Marx: Literature, Theory and Value in the Twenty-First Century  (with Christopher Nealon, Cambridge 2022). Her book America's Asia: Racial Form and American Literature, 1893-1945 (Princeton 2005) received the Cultural Studies Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies, and was named a finalist for the John Hope Franklin Prize from the American Studies Association and a Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

Photo of dancers by Robbie Sweeney


For more information or if you require an accommodation, please contact aarc@berkeley.eduwith as much notice as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the event.

Logo of Asian American Research Center in Cal Blue and Gold color scheme.

Subscribe to our email list

Stay up-to-date on our events and news