Hmong Bollywood

The Vang family escaped war. Now, second-generation Hmong American Katie Ka Vang finds herself trying to escape as well leaving the realities of the American struggle, painful memories, fear and cancer behind her and dancing instead into the fantastical world of Bollywood a place where everything wraps up with a happy, musical ending.
Written and performed by Katie Ka Vang
Directed and dramaturged by Meena Natarajan
Growing up in the California and Minnesota, Vang and her family spent hours watching… Show more the popular Indian Bollywood films with their extravagant plots, brilliant costumes, music and star crossed lovers. Hmong Bollywood explores how Bollywood gives Hmong Americans a way of engaging with forms of tradition different from their own. The performance blends creative non-fiction, broken prose, monologues, video installation, media art, Bollywood dance numbers and choreography based on Vang's life's movements.
Hmong Bollywood was commissioned by Pangea in 2008, and Vang performed the first full-length iteration as a work-in-progress as part of Pangea's Alternate Visions Festival in 2010. Hmong Bollywood will be performed at OutNorth in Alaska in April and New Orleans later this year.
Katie Ka Vang is a Hmong American interdisciplinary artist who is a performer, actor, poet, playwright, director and activist. She has performed for different theaters around the Twin Cities and co-wrote and directed the youth play Myth of Xee. She performed with Pangea World Theater in From The Ashes in New York City at the National Asian American Theater Festival. Katie created her first solo performance art piece 5:1 Meaning of Freedom; 6:2 Use of Sharpening for the Naked Stages program at Intermedia Arts. She has been awarded an Artist Initiative grant through the Minnesota State Arts Board to produce her first chapbook. Katie teaches creative drama to Hmong youth through Art Saves Us. She has read her work at The Loft Literary Center, at various public schools in the Twin Cities and regularly performs at Open Mic nights in the area.
Hmong Bollywood is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by Pangea World Theater in partnership with OutNorth, Artspot and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Legacy Amendment's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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