Nancy Wang

This morning I was able to see Nancy Wang tell the story of how her family immigrated to America from China 5 generations ago. It was very different from the performance that I saw her and her husband do last night as Eth-Noh-Tec, as this was a very serious piece, and rather than short stories that had a beginning, middle and end, her story created more vignettes of the lives of these people, and even were stories with in stories, as the performance started with the story of her great aunt Mary telling her these stories of their ancestors. The images were very strong even through the physical motions she used were small, and while her voices did have us traveling along the Ocean in a Junk Boat, the words were not the musical memorized and repeatedly rehearsed words from last night, but more like a spontaneous storytelling rather than a theatrical performance.
(During the Q and A it was reviled that this was her first performance telling this particular story as the Hearing Voices festival was wanting some immigration narratives to go along with the Stubborn Twig Oregon Reads book, and through personal events in Nancy Wang's life (the death of her mother last week) the story was not as well rehearsed as she would like), although it was still moving, and very educational.

For myself I felt more compelled to learn about the people she was telling us about because the were REAL people with complexities, not one dimensional "bird" and "monkey" that we were told about yesterday, and because I knew that their story continued it make it much more exiting, and more like my own life, or people I know.

Because of time constraints we only got through a about a generation and a half of her family line, (1849-1871ish). Because the show was so different the audiences Q and A were also different, rather than wanting information about storytelling they wanted to know more about her family’s experience, her father's side, her personal experiences, the laws and prejudged they faced, and the audience wanted to share their own stories of when their family's came to America. It was a very interesting experience, and, were I setting up the event I probably would like to have more discussion time-- but we were already running at over an hour and a half (and I had to run to get to work!). I believe there were different discussion groups that met throughout the festival as well.