MARCH 19 – 23, 2019
NATIONAL SAWDUST
BROOKLYN, USA
The second edition of Pan Asia Sounding Festival offers a fresh perspective on a vibrant continent with groundbreaking performances that focus on the ever-evolving present and future of Asian music and art. Too often, Western presentations of Asian artists focus exclusively on ancient cultural traditions, leaving the impression that Asian artists are trapped in the past, endlessly re-iterating static, unchanging forms. Curated by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Du Yun, the Pan Asia Sounding festival explodes this biased lens by presenting new works on the cutting edge of contemporary performance.
“Without new works—and new perspectives behind them—we have no hope of ending the division in our culture. Therefore, I am honored to use my platform as a National Sawdust curator to present the first ever Pan-Asia Sounding Festival in collaboration with Spring Revolution. My goal is to question the ownership of culture and demystify the Asian culture, a culture viewed too often through a lens of “tourism” and exoticism. Through six music performances, one film screening, and one installation, the festival will serve as a vehicle to encourage new ways of writing and performing new music. It is my hope that audiences not only come away both more engaged and less assumptive about Asian culture, but also with a deeper, more intertwined understanding of the region which I call my native land.”
Du Yun, Curator and Founder of Pan Asia Festival
Renowned Brooklyn music incubator and performance venue National Sawdust celebrates the future of Asia in its second annual Pan Asia Sounding Festival (March 18-23). Conceived and curated by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun, the Pan Asia Sounding Festival features pathbreaking works by today’s Asian composers, performers, artists, and filmmakers that disrupt the reductive Western tendency to present Asian music and art with a focus on their cultural heritages and future directions. As New York’s WPIX11 declared after last season’s festival: “There’s a revolution going on in Williamsburg.”
— National Sawdust Announces Second Pan Asia Sounding Festival, by BWW News Desk, Broadway World
