2023 into 2024 – LLD’s 15th Anniversary!
Dear Friends and Supporters!
With love, grace, compassion, and gratitude we greet you today, and hope that 2023 has been a year full of clarity and rejuvenation for you and your loved ones. We have had the honor to work on 8 major projects this year and would like to share a recap of 2023 and announcements for 2024. Lenora had the opportunity to travel to Lima, Peru, El Paso, TX, Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, and to NYC to jump start large-scale local, national, and international collaborations!
Recapping 2023!
- LLD was invited by U.C. Berkeley’s Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies to re-stage our award-winning Within These Walls performance piece on 14 Cal students, February 23-26 at Zellerbach Playhouse
- We created and screened a documentary film about Within These Walls: Conversations with creative collaborators and dancers of the next generation
- LLD had a world premiere screening of our And the Community Will Rise (ACWR) film as part of CAAMFest May 12, and were awarded BEST FEATURE FILM by Experimental, Dance & Music Film Festival (screened in July)! ACWR focuses on the advocacy for Ping Yuen housing tenants’ rights, by residents and Chinatown Community Development Center staff.
- LLD also started the research and creation processes for the following 2024 premieres!!
Celebrating our 15th Anniversary Season!!
- February 2 – 4, 2024 premieres of In Visibility (inspired by the advocacy and organizing to stop the prison to ICE detention pipeline) and Convergent Waves: EP (highlighting experiences of migration in El Paso & Ciudad Juárez as Title 42 came to an end) at Dance Mission Theater, SF.
- May 25 – 27, 2024 premiere of Convergent Waves: NYC, immersive site-responsive performances on South Street Seaport Museum’s 1885 Tall Ship Wavertree (NYC), inspired by the history of the international cargo ship.
- Spring 2024 screening of a short documentary dance film about Chinese migration to Peru, supported in part by Good Medicine Picture Company.
- September 2024 Lima, Peru premiere of A Bridge to Now focusing on Chinese migration to SF & Lima, cross migration between North & South America, intercultural integration and support between Chinese & Peruvian communities in the Americas.
- We will screen the final version of our Within These Walls experimental film by filmmaker Tatsu Aoki, inspired by those detained at the U.S. Immigration Station on Angel Island.
Your support is critical during this time
As LLD expands its reach deeper into national and international communities and conversations, we ask for increased support. Funding at those levels is highly competitive and out of reach for many communities of color and small arts organizations. Given increasing tension between the U.S. & China, propelled by COVID-19 and the scapegoating of Asians in the U.S. and globally, we are faced with heightening discrimination. The appreciation of diversity and uplifting voices of collaboration will bring us together, dissolving barriers of injustice, and witnessing our collective abilities to grow and unify.
We immensely appreciate your generosity and invite you to contribute today!
Your gift will directly support our collaborating artists, designers, filmmakers, performances, films, discussions, and educational programs. With the intensity and productivity of this year, and the myriad of adjustments we’ve all had to make in our lives due to the pandemic, we are ever so grateful for your continued support. Wishing you grace, compassion, and love,
Lenora Lee, Artistic Director
Lucy Tafler, Project Consultant
Johnny Huy Nguyen, Rehearsal Director
