• The Story of Chi

    CAAP at OzAsia in 2024

    The Story of Chi
    Don't miss The Story of Chi in it's world premiere season at OzAsia Festival!

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  • Longhouse: Works In Progress

    Longhouse

    Longhouse: Works In Progress
    EOIS are now open to be part of our annual Works in Progress!

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  • CAAP X Polyglot Theatre Artist Jam

    artistLab

    CAAP X Polyglot Theatre Artist Jam
    Introducing Asian Australian artists to the dynamic world of children’s theatre

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  • Engage!

    Engage! Report and Toolkit

    Engage!
    Gain valuable insights and tips for engaging diverse communities in the performing arts touring sector.

     Read more

Engage Banner

Contemporary Asian Australian Performance and Arts on Tour share a common goal: to enrich our regional stages with diverse stories and artists, engaging audiences, and communities alike. The Engage! Report and Toolkit, a collaboration between CAAP and AOT, distills insights from the 2022 Double Delicious tour into practical steps for touring presenters and venues across Australia.

Drawing from community engagement activities at The Art House Wyong, Bunjil Place, Merrigong Theatre Company and Wagga Wagga Civic Theatre, these resources explore everything from effective community engagement strategies to making foyers more welcoming. Dive into the 'Engage! Report' for real-world case studies and insights from our findings, then explore the 'Engage! Toolkit' for practical steps further reading to inspire continued action.

This initiative represents a significant shift towards meaningful connections with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse* communities and beyond. It's more than just filling seats—it's about creating lasting connections and welcoming spaces for all! Join us in making the performing arts landscape more inclusive and vibrant for everyone.

Download the Engage! Report Here
Download the Engage! Toolkit Here

Acknowledgments 

DEVELOPED BY Contemporary Asian Australian Performance and Arts on Tour
SUPPORTED BY Creative Australia through the Re-Imagine Sector Recovery Fund
WRITTEN BY Phillip Mar, Haneen Mahmood Martin and Sandi Woo

*Yes, we know this term is complicated - read the report for more!

Image: Louise Purvis 

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“The story that’s haunted me and that I keep coming back to is much closer to home.” - Jane Hutcheon

Throughout her adventurous journalism career, one story has intrigued Jane Hutcheon more than any other: the story of her mother Beatrice’s turbulent childhood in pre-Communist Shanghai. It’s the tale of an ordinary Eurasian family in extraordinary times, set against a backdrop of fading colonial opulence and looming war.

After visiting Shanghai in 2018, Jane began to search for the truth of her mother’s difficult beginnings. Lost in Shanghai is her family’s story of survival. Beatrice becomes a journalist at the South China Morning Post in the 1950’s, perhaps setting a precedent for her daughter. Using projected images from the family archive curated by renowned photographer William Yang and music composed and performed by Dr Terumi Narushima, Jane narrates the moving story of Lost in Shanghai in her own words.

Co-Directed by William Yang and Tasnim Hossain, Lost in Shanghai adds to the rich collection of theatrical storytelling works from Contemporary Asian Australian Performance (CAAP), such as Double Delicious, The Backstories, In Between Two, Who Speaks for Me and Stories Then and Now.

"A tantalising insight into the breadth and bravery she displayed across her career."
- The Sydney Morning Herald

“I challenge anyone not to be moved by this beautiful and moving tribute.”
- Theatre Travels

“Lost in Shanghai is a very moving night at the theatre...It is storytelling at its best...”
- Glam Adelaide
 

Key Creatives 

Writer/Performer Jane Hutcheon
Co-Director William Yang
Co-Director/Dramaturg Tasnim Hossain
Composer/Musician Terumi Narushima
Lighting Designer Susan Grey Gardner 
Stage Manager Jen Jackson
Production Manager Sam Read
Tour Manager Michelle St Anne 
Tour Partner: Arts on Tour

Tickets and Performances 

The Concourse presented by Willoughby City Council
Fri 16 Feb, 7PM
TICKETS

Darwin Entertaiment Centre
Fri 23 Feb,10:30AM & 7:30PM
Sat 24 Feb, 7:30PM
TICKETS

Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre
Tue 27 Feb, 8PM
TICKETS

Orange Civic Theatre
Thu 29 Feb, 8PM
TICKETS

Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre: City Hall
Fri 1 Mar, 8PM
TICKETS

Illawarra Performing Arts Centre
Tue 5 Mar, 7:30PM
TICKETS

Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool
Thu 7 Mar, 7:30PM
TICKETS

Bunjil Pace
Sat 9 Mar, 7:30PM
TICKETS

Burnie Arts Centre
Wed 13 Mar, 7:30PM
TICKETS

Theatre Royal, Hobart
Fri 15 Mar, 7:30PM
Sat 16 Mar 2PM & 7:30PM
TICKETS

Trailer

 

 

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A sumptuous audio-visual experience and song cycle by award-winning vocalist, producer and multi-disciplinary artist Rainbow Chan 陳雋然. 

Drawing on her Weitou ancestry (first settlers of Hong Kong), Chan reimagines a Weitou ritual known as the bridal lament, a public performance of grief in which a bride wept and sang in front of family and friends. In this liminal space, brides expressed bitterness towards their arranged marriages and the prevailing patriarchal rule. 

Conceived and structured as a song cycle, The Bridal Lament brings to life intergenerational and cross-cultural perspectives on diasporic experiences and the complex history of Hong Kong. With a new suite of songs by Chan and direction from Tessa Leong, this lush and lavish work pays homage to ritual in a vibrant and dynamic world of projection, movement and colour. 

Rainbow Chan’s music and shows have been hailed as ‘genre-bending art pop’ (NME) and ‘bewitchingly elfin in the exactly the same way that those words have been used to describe Bjork.’ (The Music).

“A striking and unique homage to heritage and sisterhood that could only be led by an artist such as Rainbow Chan.”

“A welcome return and uncompromising slice of art-pop.”  

“unmistakeably poetic in nature…The Bridal Lament 哭嫁歌 is tender yet intense.” – Suzy Goes See 

Performances

Wednesday 8 – Sunday 19 May 2024
Preview: Wed 8 May, 7.30pm
Wed – Sat, 7.30pm   
Sun 19 May, 5pm 
70 mins

TICKETS

Standard $35
Reduced $20
BLAKTIX $10
A small transaction fee will be charged per order.

Post-show Artist Talk 
Thu 16 May for all ticket holders

Auslan Performance
Thu 16 May, 7.30pm

Key Creatives

Lead Artist and Performer Rainbow Chan 陳雋然
Director Tessa Leong
Choreographic Consultants Amrita Hepi & Victoria Hunt
Video Design Rel Pham
Set Design Al Joel & Emily Borghi
Costume Design Al Joel
Lighting Concept Govin Ruben
Lighting Realisers Susie Henderson and Sam Read
Cultural Consultant and Narrator Irene Cheung 張翠屏
Video Programmer Daniel Herten

Produced by Contemporary Asian Australian Performance.

Co-commissioned by Performance Space and OzAsia Festival as part of Liveworks Festival 2023 and OzAsia 2023.

Supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, the NSW Government through Create NSW, the Besen Foundation, Playking Foundation, the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations, and West Kowloon Cultural District.

With commissioning support from City of Melbourne through Arts House, and Carriageworks. Generously supported by George Paramananthan and ParamCo.

Warnings 

The Bridal Lament contains haze, loud sounds, low lighting, lights that change in colours and intensity, black out and flashing moving imagery.

Performance includes translation of Weitou dialect into English through open captioning.

Detailed access information is available to download below
PDF | Word Doc

Check out Seven Sisters written, performed, produced and recorded by Rainbow Chan.

 

Previous Seasons

Liveworks Festival
19–22 Oct
Bay 20, Carriageworks 

OzAsia Festival 
1–2 Nov 2023
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre Theatre 

 

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Contemporary Asian Australian Performance’s annual Works In Progress showcase returns to Carriageworks on Thu 23 Nov, featuring fresh and original works in development by Asian Australian artists. This year’s featured artists will present a range of ideas spanning gig theatre, musical comedy, K-pop dance and sound installations.

Audience members are invited to participate in a facilitated feedback session during the event and stay for light refreshments with the wider CAAP community.

PROGRAM

Dog Meat/Thịt Chó by Andrew Dang
A supernatural coming of age story centred around a first-generation Vietnamese-Australian. This play explores themes of disconnection from culture and self-actualisation. Can you stay with your family if you have to kill a part of yourself to do it? And how do you reconcile where you come from with who you are becoming?

I Used to Think Wu-Tang Clan were Asian by Cheng Tang
It’s part performance lecture, part musical, and part spoken word that explores intergenerational expectations, colourism, racism, the myth of the model minority and cultural appropriation through the journey of a fictional Chinese Australian hip hop group pitching to a record label.

Fishing Songs by Jasmin Wing-Yin Leung
Fishing Songs draws upon two parallel handheld knowledges, finding the possibilities of resonance, touch, and second-hand memory within these one-to-one practices:
1. The virtuosity of Séuiseuhngyàn (水上人) handline fishing. Water currents and fish behaviour is transduced by the fingertip in contact with a single fishing line, feeling and knowing when the fish has fully swallowed the hook.
and
2. The virtuosity of playing the Erhu in rational intonation. Air vibrations and the sensations of tone are transduced by the fingertip in contact with a single string, feeling and knowing when you have precisely found a frequency to the hundredth of a semitone.

My Dad Never Saw The Beatles by Jules Orcullo
My Dad Never Saw the Beatles is a mythic retelling of an untrue event set in the Philippines in 1966, told by a daughter desperate to fulfil her Dad’s dreams. The 10 minute extract will be told by one person in the form fabulated and fabricated gig theatre with original music by Jules Orcullo.

STANs (A K-Pop Play) by Natasha Pontoh-Supit
STANs is set in the internet-verse and a place where 50% will get you through mostly everything, University. This piece showcases how pop culture shapes and impacts the identities of young people and delves into the politics of internal gatekeeping inside fan culture. Whilst also exploring the beginnings and pressures of adulthood.

 

TICKETS AND PERFROMANCES

Thu 23 Nov, 6pm
Bay 20, Carriageworks 

BOOK

 

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