Details and Photos from our IASNY event

1. JENNIFER LIM

2. From left to right: theatre critic Randy Gener, 2012 IASNY Trophy Winner Jennifer Lim, playwright Saviana Stanescu (IASNY’s Founder and Artistic Director), Lark’s artistic director John Clinton Eisner; 3. Jennifer Lim and IASNY performers; 4. Aasif Mandvi from Jon Stewart's Daily Show performing at New York with an Accent; 5. Saviana Stanescu and the IASNY Trophy - "Victory Nests in the Immigrant's Shoe", a sculpture by Stavri Karamfilov; Photos by Gabika Bočkaj

Excerpts from the speeches honoring Jennifer Lim:

RANDY GENER:

"Jennifer's achievement is greater and deeper than her Broadway success. We are celebrating Jennifer because she is an incisive actor. Because she has shown full commitment to her art. Her path as an actor and an immigrant New Yorker sheds light on the shape-shifting versatility combined with spiritual depth, that exquisite intelligence that's necessary to fully embody that sense of play."

JOHN EISNER:

“I am John Eisner. I’m the Artistic Director of the Lark Play Development Center and a member of the IASNY Advisory Board.

IASNY – or IMMIGRANT ARTISTS AND SCHOLARS IN NEW YORK – was founded by my friend and colleague Saviana Stanescu. Its mission is to bring artists and scholars together to nurture and advocate for immigrant voices as a vital and vibrant part of the New York City community.

As a playwright as well as the creator of many of the international exchange projects at the Lark, where we work together, Saviana has helped shape the Lark’s values and exposed us to new ideas from around the world. I am grateful for this and it is why I am part of IASNY.

Under Saviana’s leadership, IASNY is having an impact in our community.

Part of IASNY’s mission is to produce the annual NEW YORK WITH AN ACCENT program that we have enjoyed today here at the Nuryorican Poets Cafe. It is part of the city’s IMMIGRANT HERITAGE WEEK 2012, which was established in 2004 by Mayer Michael Bloomberg.

Saviana will be at a breakfast reception with the Mayor this Tuesday, and I’m sure you will agree that she has a lot of good news to report about what took place today.

This year, IASNY has added a new and important program – the IASNY TROPHY FOR EXCELLENCE – to recognize an immigrant New Yorker for outstanding achievement in the arts.

I’m thrilled to announce that the first-ever IASNY TROPHY FOR EXCELLENCE will be awarded to actress JENNIFER LIM for her starring role as Xi Yan in the Broadway production of CHINGLISH by David Henry Hwang.

Jennifer, who was born in Hong Kong and is now a New Yorker, has performed in many kinds of theater in many parts of the world. Her experience as an artist with a foot in more than one culture was critical to the development of CHINGLISH in its workshops at the Lark, at the Goodman Theater, and at the Longacre Theater on Broadway.

I saw CHINGLISH at every step of its process, so I know that this is true.

This award does more than recognize Jennifer’s extraordinary contributions as an actor in New York – it also challenges her, as an immigrant and a leader, to help us see the world around us in new ways.

I would stake a very large bet that Jennifer will continue to do this.

In a New York Times profile of Jennifer in November, David Henry Hwang described Jennifer as “attractive and sexy, with the whole package necessary to do the part.” He praised her “great comic timing, determination, and fierceness.” I would also add that she is brilliantly intelligent, immensely imaginative, a great collaborator, and a truly good person.

Please join me in welcoming to the stage ACTRESS JENNIFER LIM, the recipient of the 2012 IASNY TROPHY FOR EXCELLENCE!

John Eisner handed the IASNY Trophy to Jennifer Lim at the end of an evening full of vibrant and diverse performances by outstanding IASNY members and NYC artists committed to multicultural dialogue. This annual event, curated and organized by Saviana Stanescu, embodied the vision of IASNY as a forum for the exchange of ideas, the fostering of an immigrant voice, and a showcase of the breadth of talents in New York City's (immigrant) community.

IASNY encourages the participation of all artists and scholars interested in the immigrant experience: http://saviana.com/immigrant_artists_and_scholars_in_new_york_iasny

We welcome your DONATIONS! (they will be used to keep IASNY going and growing)

Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY) is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY) may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

You can safely DONATE HERE: https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/contribute/donate/3373.

NEW YORK WITH AN ACCENT annual event Saturday at NuYo!

Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY)

and Nuyorican Poets Cafe

proudly present

NEW YORK WITH AN ACCENT

an annual showcase and awards presentation
at Nuyorican Poets Café
Saturday, April 14, 3-6 pm

The 2012 IASNY Trophy for Excellence
will be awarded to actress JENNIFER LIM,
for her starring role in the Broadway production of
CHINGLISH by David Henry Hwang

Tickets: $8 online
https://secure.gigmaven.com/events/8013/orders/new
$10, $5 (for students) – at the door

To celebrate Immigrant Heritage Week 2012 (established in 2004 by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg), IASNY will be having its annual showcase event NEW YORK WITH AN ACCENT at the storied Nuyorican Poets Café in the East Village.

Featuring performances by outstanding IASNY members and NYC artists committed to multicultural dialogue, this annual event promises to embody the vision of IASNY as a forum for the exchange of ideas, the fostering of an immigrant voice, and a showcase of the breadth of talents in New York City's (immigrant) community.

NEW YORK WITH AN ACCENT will be held Saturday, April 14, 3-6 pm at Nuyorican Poets Café, located at 236 East 3rd Street between Avenues B and C.

For the first time, IASNY has established an award to be given to an inspiring immigrant New Yorker in recognition of his/her achievements. The 2012 IASNY Trophy for Excellence will be awarded to actress JENNIFER LIM for her starring role in the Broadway production of CHINGLISH by David Henry Hwang.

The IASNY Trophy is a sculpture called "Victory Nests in the Immigrant's Shoe" made by Bulgarian-American Queens-based artist Stavri Karamfilov.

IASNY, founded by Romanian-born playwright/scholar Saviana Stanescu, is an alliance of outstanding people working in the arts and academia who are committed to support, nurture and advocate for immigrant voices as a vital and vibrant part of the New York City community.

Advisory Board: May Adrales, Marcy Arlin, Liz Bradley, John Clinton Eisner, Teresa Eyring, David Henry Hwang, Carol Martin, Joyce Maio, Jose Rivera, Richard Schechner, Aroon Shivdasani, Lisa Vogel, Zishan Ugurlu

Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY) is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY) may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. You can safely DONATE HERE: https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/contribute/donate/3373.

Featured artists include (in order of appearance):

Saviana Stanescu - IASNY's Founder / Artistic Director, playwright, poet, scholar, on faculty at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, www.saviana.com

Aasif Mandvi - http://www.thedailyshow.com/news-team/aasif-mandvi

is best known as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart but he is also the recipient of an Obie Award for his one-man-play Sakina's Restaurant.

Bogar Alonso

hails from the Midwest and Mid-Mexico. As a mosaic writer he writes screenplays, poetry, ad copy, articles, music journalism, and clever put-downs on social media sites.

Randy Gener - www.theaterofoneworld.org

Nathan Award-winning editor, writer, critic and conceptual artist in New York City

Zishan Ugurlu

Turkish-born director, actress, artistic director of Actors Without Borders - ITONY
scholar, assistant professor at Eugene Lang College, The New School University

Jelena Stupljanin – www.jelenastupljanin.com

Serbian-born award-winning actress, starring in the recently released movie Circus Columbia

Pia Wilson

African-American award-winning playwright, Passage Theater Play Lab, member of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group

Sanda Weigl

world-renowned singing sensation, blending Gypsy and folk music, cabaret and jazz

R. E. Toledo

writer, New York University/University of Tennessee, co-editor of I’man-hattan, NYU Spanish Creative Writing Program’s online publication

Pamela Jackson

storyteller, writer; she has performed on the stages of The Kennedy Center, La Mama Theatre, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, the A.I.R Gallery.

Ondina Frate

Actress, Atlantic Theatre Company

Christina Quintana

MFA playwright at Columbia University

Natasa Trifan

dancer/choreographer, The Natasa Trifan Performance Group, www.natasatrifan.com

Blagovesta Momchedjikova

Bulgarian-born New York University professor of writing, art, and the city

Jessica Litwak

playwright, drama therapist, actor, activist, teacher, Theatre Without Borders, founding member of Dream Act Union, artistic director of New Generation Theatre Ensemble.

Stavri Karamfilov

Bulgarian-born theater director, sculptor, and critic

Inma Heredia

flamenco singer, dancer, comedienne

JENNIFER LIM – 2012 IASNY TROPHY FOR EXCELLENCE

A native of Hong Kong, Jennifer Lim now resides, works and dreams out of New York City. After graduating with a Bachelor's degree from Bristol University in the U.K., she was accepted to the prestigious Yale School of Drama, where she received her MFA in Acting. She is a "half & half" (half Chinese, half Korean) who speaks Cantonese and Mandarin fluently and, when the need arises, enough Korean to warm a plate of japchae. To broaden her international exposure and qualify for a US Artist green card, which she has now received, Jennifer Lim has taken many opportunities to work abroad over the last few years. In addition to starring in CHINGLISH, she has helped develop new works at Lark Play Development Center, Pan Asian Rep, East Coast Artists, Mabou Mines, Reverie Productions, New Dramatists, Ensemble Studio Theater, New Georges, Cherry Lane Theater, Second Generation and Ma-Yi Theater Company.

IASNY encourages the participation of all artists and scholars interested in the immigrant experience: http://saviana.com/immigrant_artists_and_scholars_in_new_york_iasny

For more details e-mail KEN WOO at: immigrantartists@yahoo.com

Thoughts for an essay

I was particularly interested in Timothy Douglas' essay and Winter Miller's response in HowlRound. For me that conversation is larger yet similar, I'd like to discuss the power of the Western white upper-middle class aesthetic paradigm and the problem (or the necessity?) of quantifying our identity - writers of all colors and ethnic backgrounds, immigrant and international writers as well - in order to fit in a little specific box in American theatres' programming.

Of course I'll be bringing my own Romanian experience into this, but my hope is to trigger a larger conversation about the global village, about "branding" someone's work and ways in which the stories we are told and we tell shape us and our careers as playwrights. I would ultimately like to touch on issues of power, decision-making, and Western cultural standards, as well as the seductive power of the English language (my own journey being one of struggling to fully conquer the English language and write my stories in English in order to reach a wider audience... and that's really not easy when you come to this country a decade ago, in your early 30s, and begin writing your plays in English... this might lead to the issue of agism in American theatre and the paradox that I am only a 10-year old American "girl" playwright but a middle-aged woman in the eyes of artistic directors :)

Year of the Dragon

I-Ching’s good advice: CENTERING IN TRUTH

Truth involves establishing an aware relationship between your inner core and significant others in your life. Centering in truth involves the ability to perceive a fundamental wisdom, reflected within yourself -- and also in your relationships.

Truth is transformed into power when you disperse all prejudice and make yourself receptive to the world as it really is. Truth's power can be a remarkable force indeed -- yet is rarer than generally imagined. It can be maintained only by cultivating a genuine openness to things as they are -- a willingness to see, rather than merely look.

Whenever your inner life is clouded, your influence in the world is under a shadow. If you are fearful, you will be attacked; if you cloak genuine mysteries in dogma, opportunities for new insight will be lost. If you vacillate in upholding your principles, you will be tested. Yet, when you are firm and strong, the power of truth can break through even the most stubborn minds.

In any debate, the power to perceive the truth in the other side's argument is essential to achieving success. It is possible to influence even the most difficult people, or improve the most difficult circumstance, through the power of universal truth -- for unvarnished truth is something to which all things naturally respond. Get in touch with the part of yourself that is aware of this universal force of truth. Cultivate this inner resource, and you will become adept at using it to bond with others to support a common purpose.

Posthumanity...

I'm fascinated by the ways in which neuroscientists work towards erasing traumatic memories through basically “deleting” the fear response, neutralizing an emotion. That led me to more research on the other end of the spectrum: enhancing human memory. The next step in my research was obvious: posthumanism and transhumanism – the merging of humans and machines/computers, the notion of upgrading humans through artificial intelligence and computer science.

This is not SF, things are actually happening: Professor Kevin Warwick has already experimented with computerized chips inserted into his arm and the possibility of moving objects through brain impulses sent to that chip and beyond. He even communicated with his wife “brain to brain” declaring language and speech obsolete and humans on their way of becoming a subspecies as Virtual Reality will take over, a “reality” where we have more choices, we can choose our bodies like we choose our clothes in the current physical space.

“In the virtual world you will meet with either real people or simulated people – eventually there won’t be much difference”, writes Ray Kurzweil (an award winning computer scientist and author whose inventions include reading machines for the blind, speech-recognition technology and the cybernetic poet) in “The age of spiritual machines – When computers exceed human intelligence”.

Yes, we all remember the movie MATRIX, but that SF reality is closer now than we think. And, at the opposite pole, we remember Ted Kaczynski, the “unabomber”, a formerly genius scientist who advocated for the simple return to nature. Well, unfortunately he “spiced up” his manifestos with some unnecessary terrorist activity…

However, regular people are buying into the “posthuman” frenzy too, here’s what Max Moore writes on his website “On becoming Posthuman”:

“The merging of human and machine is clear to those who survey the arena. Machines are becoming more organic, self-modifying, and intelligent. Driving these developments are fields such as artificial life, neural networks, fuzzy logic, intelligent agents, and machine intelligence. At the same time, we are beginning to incorporate our technology into our selves. We began with pacemakers, artificial joints, and contact lenses. Artificial retinas are under development, and signals have successfully been passed back and forth between a neuron in vitro and a field effect transistor. The researchers suggest the next step is to connect up an array of neurons and electronic components. Computers and their interfaces rapidly evolve to fit us: From mainframes and text-based interfaces to PCs and GUIs, PDAs, voice-recognition, and knowbots. How long before our computers are implanted in our brains, as seamlessly integrated into our cognition as an extra hemisphere? Maybe 10 years, maybe 50 or 60, but it's coming.

Some fear that life will lose its meaningfulness without the traditional stages of life produced by aging and the certainty of death. Extropians regard such an attitude as an understandable rationalization, a mechanism for making the best of what has hitherto been inevitable. Certainly, the achievement of posthuman lifespans will require extensive revision of our way of life, our institutions, and our conception of our selves. Yet the effort is worth it. Limitless life offers new vistas, unexplored possibilities, unbounded self-development. Not only will agelessness and deathlessness not rob life of its meaning, I believe the contrary is true.”

Yes, the possibility to enhance human capabilities already exists. To harness the ever increasing abilities of machine intelligence, to enable extra sensory input and to communicate in a much richer way, using thought alone.

As I mentioned, Professor Kevin Warwick has taken the first steps on this path, using himself as a guinea pig test subject receiving, by surgical operation, technological implants connected to his central nervous system.

What happens when a man is merged with a computer?

This is the question that Professor Kevin Warwick and his team at the department of Cybernetics, University of Reading intend to answer with 'Project Cyborg'.

On Monday 24th August 1998, at 4:00pm, Professor Kevin Warwick underwent an operation to surgically implant a silicon chip transponder in his forearm.
This experiment allowed a computer to monitor Kevin Warwick as he moved through halls and offices of the Department of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, using a unique identifying signal emitted by the implanted chip. He could operate doors, lights, heaters and other computers without lifting a finger.

The age of neural implants has already started!

I could write lots of pages explaining why I am so interested in this huge dramatic conflict of our times: HUMAN vs POSTHUMAN. Some scientists consider this moment as important in our evolutionary process as the one at the beginning of life on Earth: the splitting in two of one-cell organisms. Now we are on the brink of humans merging with computers, biological intelligence merging with artificial intelligence. A huge step (forward?) in our progress.

I'm working on a play called ENHANCED that aims to explore this main dramatic conflict involving ethics, emotions, curiosity and the need for progress as my character ALMA, an aging neuroscientist, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, is contemplating crossing the personal line between human and posthuman.