SF’s Chinatown Block Party Aims to Bring Community Together
Performance of “And the Community Will Rise” excerpts
as part of the “Ping Yuen-Peaceful Garden Summer Block Party”
Saturday, 7/17, 12:20pm
In front of 795 Pacific Street, (between Stockton & Grant), San Francisco
Lenora Lee Dance is thrilled to be participating in the “Ping Yuen-Peaceful Garden Summer Block Party”, an event promoting unity and solidarity within our communities, with an emphasis on our Black and Asian community.
The day’s events will take place from 11am – 3pm.
Chinatown Community Development Center celebrates the rainbow of cultures within the Ping Yuen Properties as well as provide a day of enrichment, showcasing cultural dancing, food, spoken word, performances, games, inviting pillars of the community such as Norman Fong, Mayor London Breed, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, UNITED PLAYAZ, Community Youth Center and the Street Violence Intervention Program. “Say it Loud, I’m Ping Yuen and I’m Proud,” embodies the spirit of what the “Peaceful Garden Summer Block Party” will emit into the Ping Yuen residents, Pride in Togetherness, Solidarity and Peace within our communities.
click here for the full SF Chronicle article
click here for the full NBC article
LLD is in the process of creating a dance film of “And the Community Will Rise”and will perform excerpts this Saturday, 7/17, 12:20pm.
This work explores Chinatown residents’ struggle for affordable housing and fighting for their rights as tenants and recent immigrants as well as the complexities of the multi-ethnic backgrounds of the tenants in the Ping Yuen complex. Timing is crucial as SF is witnessing growing displacement of its low-income residents, as neighborhoods inhabited for decades by generations of communities of color are facing gentrification and displacement.
Conceived, produced, directed by Lenora Lee
Choreography by Lenora Lee in collaboration with dance artists / performers Clarissa Dyas, Anna Greenberg Gold, Lynn Huang, Amber Julian, Melissa Lewis, Megan Lowe, and Johnny Nguyen
Music directed by saxophonist Francis Wong, with rapper AK Black, guitarist Karl Evangelista, vocalist Helen Palma, percussionist Deszon X. Claiborne, Courtesy of Asian Improv Records. Additional vocals by Amber Julian.
Interviewees featured in the soundscore include: Norman Fong, former Mayor Ed Lee, Debra Brown, Sophia, Myrisha Mixon, Benson Toy.
And The Community Will Rise is supported by Chinatown Community Development Center, Asian Improv aRts, API Cultural Center. It is made possible in part by a grant from The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund that also is supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a Kenneth Rainin Foundation Open Spaces Program grant, California Arts Council Creative California Communities grant, by Zellerbach Family Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, and by Generous Individuals
