WORKSHOPS AND LECTURES

For more information on workshops and residency events, download the EPK here.

A four-time grantee of the Los Angeles Artist-in-Residence Award, the former Artistic Director of the Asian American Teen Theater Company, and a popular guest presenter at universities nationwide, Kristina has extensive experience in speaking about her work and the work that inspires her. She’s also taught hundreds of lively hands-on workshops for teens and adults.  Below are descriptions of some of the workshops that can be tailored for your program needs.

All of these workshops can be modified to fit the age range of participants, time and space constraints, and curriculum needs.  Workshops can also combine lecture material and hands-on activities upon request.

LECTURES
Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest:  Mental Illness and Suicide Among Asian American Women  (60-120 minutes)
This is an informal 30-minute excerpt presentation of Kristina’s most recent solo work “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” which follows a Q&A discussion.  The selected excerpts explore the following themes: the high rates of suicide among APIA women, the cultural stigma of mental illness, the difficulty of seeking low cost help, the relationships between Asian American women, and the desire to achieve as linked to depression.  The excerpts follow a discussion on the artist’s creative process in creating the show.  It is also recommended that the presenter assemble a panel from their local mental health community to be available during the Q&A.

Suitable for: Ages 18 and up
Ideal Curriculum matches: Sociology, Media Arts, Media Studies, Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies, Psychology, Social Work, Performance Studies, Political Science
Technical Needs: excerpts can play in a theater, laptop hook-up to video screen (to play powerpoint slides), boombox and a volunteer to run the cues.

Subversive Art and Activism:  The Art of Kristina Wong (60-90 minutes)
This is a general lecture of Kristina’s performance work, film, and writings.  In a fun interactive lecture, Kristina confronts, stretches, and challenges the popular connotations of words like “activism” and “feminism”—why they seem scary, why they were scary for her in her pre-bad-ass performance art days.  She redefined those words through her art today and continues to use art and performance to make new discoveries and revolutionize the world around her.  Kristina also describes how she redefines “performance” in her art.  Acts of resistance can be hilarious and thought provoking! From bigbadchinesemama.com to crashing the Miss Chinatown Pageant-- “performances” aren’t just what you paid $50 to see in a theater.  Kristina shows how revolution can be funny, effective, and a way of life.

Suitable for: Ages 16 and up
Ideal Curriculum matches: Sociology, Media Arts, Media Studies, Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies, Performance Studies
Technical Needs:  DVD player, VHS player, TV or video projector and screen, internet ready computer, overhead projector. Accommodations can be made if some of these are not available.

Culture Jammers Around the World (60-90 minutes)
What do artistic revolutionaries do when they don’t have a theater but want to upstage injustice in big ways?  Cue the culture jammers! Kristina will play clips from some of the most outrageous of public stunts from theatrical activists working with very few resources. What tactics are these artists using?  What works?  What doesn’t work?  Expect amazing discussion between DVD changing.

Suitable for: Ages 14 and up
Ideal Curriculum matches: Sociology, Media Arts, Media Studies, Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies, Performance Studies, Political Science
Technical Needs:  DVD player, TV or video screen

PERFORMANCE/WRITING WORKSHOPS

Finding Your Language:  Playing with Different Performance Tongues (60-90 minutes)
You don’t have to be the best actor, singer, or dancer to tell an amazing story.  Finding the honest place and dabbling between different disciplines might be where you find your strongest voice.  Sometimes your award-worthy performance may work best offstage for an unsuspecting audience.  This workshop is focused on process rather than product.  We start with some warm-ups, movement and theater games-- the rest is playing!  Be dressed to move!  In a non-judgmental space, participants will play with movement, text, visuals and working in site-specific contexts to forge a new performance language all their own.

Suitable for: Ages 18 and up     
This workshop can run in one or multiple sessions.

Masks, Disguises, Personas, and the Performances of Everyday Life: A Solo Performance Workshop (60-90 minutes)

In this workshop we deconstruct the way we are seen and how we see ourselves.  We’ll draw ourselves again and again to visualize ourselves in metaphor.  We’ll make giant sculptures on our bodies and take turns performing the real and unreal to empower, recreate, and comment on our own identities.  These are fun exercises that participants can bring back to their student groups.

Suitable for: Ages 16 and up
This workshop can run in one or multiple sessions.

Other workshops are available in (inquire for more details):

Performing Subculture:  Women who Subvert Culture (lecture)
Improv Theater Basics
BECAUSE:  Multi-generational Performance and Writing Workshops for Women of Color (and other communities!)
Using Theater games to break boundaries
Polishing:  An Interdisciplinary Performance Workshop for Tuning Up Almost Finished Pieces
Making a Viable Living as an Artist 101
Teen Writing Workshop
Using Theater for Group Building and Exploring Teen Issues
DIY/ Crafting for Social Change