ACTION开拍 to Premiere at Philly Fringe's Cannonball Festival
The production will be developed in collaboration with Gideon Lazarus, Sheridan Merrick, Alec Welhouse, and Jieru Wang.
Emerging theatre artist Yuchen Ye will premiere her newest original work, ACTION开拍, runs September 23-26 at Asian Arts Initiative Black Box Theater (1219 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107). Presented as part of Philly Fringe and Cannonball Festival, the bilingual documentary performance draws from family archives, historical research, and live storytelling to examine the intersections of war, migration, family, and art.
"When I was eighteen, I discovered that my great-grandfather directed twenty-one films in 1930s China. Why did nobody ever tell me? Where can I find his films? What did he believe in as an artist? Now I step onstage, searching through fragments for answers-in a world still falling apart."
Part investigation, part performance, ACTION开拍 follows Yuchen's search to reconstruct the interrupted life of her great-grandfather, a filmmaker whose artistic career was profoundly shaped by war and displacement. Blending live performance, archival materials, documentary footage, audience interaction, and bilingual storytelling, the piece asks what it means to keep making art during war and migration.
Created and performed by Yuchen Ye, the production is developed in collaboration with Gideon Lazarus, Sheridan Merrick, Alec Welhouse, and Jieru Wang. ACTION开拍 connects one artist's search to urgent questions facing our present moment: How do wars erase cultural memory? What does it mean to continue making art during political uncertainty and migration? Can performance become an act of historical repair?
Tickets to ACTION开拍 are currently on sale by visiting phillyfringe.org. General admission is $25 with the PWYC option.
Yuchen Ye (she/her) is a Chinese-born, New York-based interdisciplinary theatre-maker. Her theatre practice is rooted in real historical events and Chinese cultural memory, integrating oral histories, documentary materials, and archival research to bring unheard stories from history to the stage. Through this practice, she seeks to transform individual voices into a collective force for reflection and change. She is a recipient of the Contemporary Performance Award from Big Art Group and an alumna of Directors Lab North(Toronto, Canada). Her work has been presented across China, the U.K., and the U.S. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College; BA, Shanghai Theatre Academy.
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