I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be participating in a community forum panel about the concept of destiny in adoption. The community forum event is free, please visit Theater Mu for more information about the play, Four Destinies by Katie Hae Leo.
From the press release:
MU PERFORMING ARTS PRESENTS
A COMMUNITY FORUM
What If?: An Adoptee Dilemma
September 25, 4:30 pm
at John B. Davis Auditorium, Macalester College
Free Admission
(Minneapolis/St. Paul) In association with its upcoming 2011-2012 mainstage season, Mu Performing Arts is initiating a new series of community forums designed to bring audiences closer to the work before it appears on stage. The first of these forums, entitled “What If?: An Adoptee Dilemma” and co-sponsored by Macalester College, will take place on Sunday, September 25, 4:30 pm, at the John B. Davis Auditorium of Macalester College. Admission is free and open to the public.
Mu Performing Arts, the region’s foremost Asian American performing arts company, focuses its work on social justice and community issues, many of which affect individuals both within and outside of the Asian American population. With the aim to enlighten audiences through discussion and create deeper insight into the stories on stage, Mu will hold one forum prior to each of its four mainstage productions throughout the season. Topics for each forum will reflect a relevant issue inspired by the related performance.
“What If: An Adoptee Dilemma” takes its inspiration from Four Destinies, a play about various facets of the adoptee experience by playwright Katie Hae Leo. The panelists, all adoptees, will engage in a comprehensive dialogue of stories and perspectives, exploring questions of fate, race, sexuality, and family from an adoptee point of view.
Mu envisions the community forum not only as a means of bringing people together to examine an important issue, but learning from those who have lived through the experiences that Mu presents on the stage. “We’ve asked a lot of questions and have had conversations with many people in the [adoptee] community to get to this point,” says Mu’s Community Liaison Randy Reyes, who is organizing the forum series. “We are really excited to have the support from Macalester College and some of the top leaders in the adoptee community involved in this panel.”
Panelists include social worker and PhD candidate JaeRan Kim; PhD candidate and Korean American adoptee Oh Myo Kim; LGBTQ social activist and PhD student Shawyn Lee; Colombian adoptee Shanda Stracek, and Metro State assistant professor in social work Robert O’Connor. Soojin Pate, Minneapolis Community and Technical College will moderate the forum.
Four Destinies by Katie Hae Leo opens at Mixed Blood Theatre on October 15.
JaeRan Kim 