CHRONOLOGUES

CHRONOLOGUES is a multimedia found choreopoem series based on a culmination of interviews with Southeast Asian NYC locals and their relationship with grief, both current and anticipatory. Due to gentrification, colonialism, state violence, migration, and socioeconomic disparity, Southeast Asians, particularly those who have been affected by NYC’s lack of regard for long-term residents, are often left with grief as a means of collecting and/or supplementing historical archives.

Participants are asked to discuss a physical symbol of a grief they are currently or expecting to face, and why it is a symbol of grief for them. Visual poems and monologues will be created based on excerpts from every interview, and will be performed by various actors in a choreopoem and video installation. The purpose of the project is to showcase what is generationally passed down when in constant proximity to loss. It also seeks to address the importance of archives as a form of art and in turn, art as a form of archive for communities that are not granted the privilege of documentation and record.

funeral rites for jamaica, queens 2kforever

written using a culmination of interviews with long-term southeast asian NYC residents and the impacts of gentrification on their perceptions of loss

play // every early 2000s r&b song // middle school emo anthem // we try & forget // whenever there is death // we become our best // through our worst // this is the mantra for our // city 

pour henny // on the grave // pop one for jj’s boyfriend // who died of alcohol // fill a corpse with what // drove the soul all out // this is what we are // a vessel for things to pass through // to be inside at the right place and time // what keeps us alive 

divine swallows // oxy to change his heart rate in high school // a guy from lyons smashed // his head against the mcdonalds on the block // when the emts picked him up // blood poured out // the hole in the middle // of his forehead into his mouth // he grins with sun // says // don’t worry y’all i’m still handsome // he knows how to spill // doesn’t need a god to determine when // his time’s up 

whereas // tears well up in my eyes // if my chest rises and falls differently than the night before // i purposely forget // the prayer for when someone dies // inna-illahi-something // i always remember how to start // grieving // but // never when or how to let it out of my mouth 

play something good // when i’m gone // don’t call it an end // tell everyone i ran off // fell in love with my body again // or i left my body instead // or my body is now married to the dirt // i am in an on // off //relationship // with dusk