Award-winning multimedia performer Dan Kwong is familiar with the barriers prejudice creates.
During his growing-up years in Southern California in the 1960s, Dan’s two main passions were baseball and the space program. But as the son of a Chinese father and Japanese mother, Dan saw no Asian role models in either field.
What he heard, though, were his mother’s stories of her family’s life in an internment camp after Pearl Harbor Day–and schoolmates’ taunts about his Chinese heritage.
Today, Dan relates these experiences in multimedia presentations that challenge his audiences to re-examine the way they think. Dan’s honors for his work include a Rockefeller Foundation Award and numerous City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs grants. His book, From Inner Worlds To Outer Space, compiles some of his most popular performance scripts.
Recently, Dan gave a presentation called “America, Talking To Ya” at Pasadena City College’s 2013 Borders of Diversity student conference. The room was packed–and the interactive exercises Dan led, after his performance, left his audience with some new ideas.
Dan talked about his background, his work and his new show, What? No Ping Pong Balls?, which he created in honor of his late mother and which premieres at Santa Monica’s Highways Performance Space in June.
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