Chinatown Arts Space in partnership with Asia House and supported by Shaftesbury PLC launches SUSTAIN – a new project to commission a third landmark piece of public art for London’s Chinatown.

• Sustainability at the heart of artists’ brief
• Contemporary sculpture positioned on the corner of Gerrard Place and Shaftesbury Avenue – above a famous Chinese herbalist’s shop
• A sculptor artist of East Asian descent to be commissioned

The search for the next sculptor artist to produce a striking, thought-provoking and contemporary piece of public art for London’s Chinatown has started this month. Chinatown Arts Space is delighted to be working with Shaftesbury PLC for the third time to improve, ignite and invent a new Chinatown. This ambitious project aims to deliver public art that fully captures the imagination of all those that visit, work or live in and around London’s vibrant Chinatown.

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Invitation to tender to capture audience responses to the collection

The National Maritime Museum (NMM) has the largest historic maritime collection in the World. The NMM’s collection spans the history of people’s relationship with the sea, showcasing for our visitors the history of seafaring, timekeeping, navigation, trade, cruising, migration, and the British Empire. The NMM is developing the range of knowledge available about the collection through the ‘In your words’ project. The pilot project will focus on capturing digital responses from our visitors to collection objects. The aim is to make accessible to visitors on-site and online, the diverse perspectives and histories connected to the collection, and particularly aims to include cultural knowledge to complement existing curatorial knowledge on objects.


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I’m casting the short film "Healthy" for Hades Productions and am looking for someone to play the father, East Asian, playing age 55+

The writer Tuyen Do is a graduate of the Royal Court Writers Programme. Part developed by BBC Writers Room and B3 Media this comedy drama tells the story of a young British born Vietnamese woman’s attempts to reconcile family expectations, her own chaotic love life and what is means to stay healthy. The film will offer great, high-quality material for showreels and will also be entered into film festivals in the year ahead.


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The Korean Film Night: Year of the 12 Directors

2012 Korean Film Night is proud to present the work of 12 of Korea’s leading Directors with a dynamic selection of weekly screenings throughout the year.


January’s mini-season features the films of Director LEE Myung-se who will be joining us for a special Q&A screening of his 2005 film ‘Duelist’.


Screening Details:
Duelist, 2005, 111min, Cert. 12
Thursday 26th January 2012, 6.30pm
Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly
Tickets: £10/£8 Cons.



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RED LIGHT REVOLUTION finally gets a big screen release. Now's your chance to catch it if you missed it at Terracotta Festival.

The press say: “If you see one sex shop comedy this year, do not miss this one!”

The hilarious feel-good comedy tells the story of a down on his luck Beijinger (sacked by his cab company, wife runs off with another man) who throws in all his chips to open a sex toy store. Little did he know that he was a target of a high pressured sales scheme operated by a gangster who will break his legs if he doesn't deliver a weekly payment.

Nor did he realise the bureaucratic nightmare of opening a store in China. To cap it off, the neighbourhood he chose is full of geriatrics!
Shot by an Australian brought up in Beijing, it's been compared by the press to The Full Monty quite often and described from your feedback at our screenings as "a US indie comedy shot in Chinese."

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Artists’ Pitches for the Chinese New Year Celebrations on Sunday 29th January 2012

2012 welcomes the auspicious Year of the Dragon and Sunday 29th January 2012 will see London celebrate in style with a one-day festival featuring a Dragon parade through the streets of Soho, performances on a spectacular stage in Trafalgar Square as well as the lion dances throughout the day in Chinatown.



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GERBILS IN A GLASS CAGE

Gerbils in a Glass Cage, written by Rosaline Ting has been given a R&D grant by the Arts Council and had a rehearsed reading at Tara Arts in June 2011.

We are now bringing it to the next stage: a scratch production at The Space on 10th February.

Casting is open for the part of LEE AUN.

LEE AUN – female, 46 year old Chinese woman (possibility of actress being in early to late thirties). Flamboyantly dressed with lots of jewellery. Loud, brash, with a sense of humour but domineering. Speaks English with a Singaporean accent. She also uses gestures and the odd words of Hokkien dialect, in typical Singaporean fashion.


Rehearsal dates are from 30th of January to 10th of February 2012 (2 weeks full-time).

Pay: 300£ per week (this includes expenses)


Short synopsis of the play: Lee Sar harbours a secret desire of fulfilling a life-long dream. Now is the time to break free. But her sister Lee Aun arrives in London with disturbing news from Singapore and coerces her to return to her homeland. With it will come money, but will Lee Sar be forever bound to her past and never gain her freedom?
Laced with humour, this moving new play reveals fascinating aspects of Chinese culture with universal echoes.

If interested, please email Tanja at tanjapagnuco@yahoo.com with your CV or spotlight link.

Auditions are to take place on Wednesday 18th of January.

Devoted and Disgruntled 7- what are we doing about theatre and the performing arts

Do you love theatre?
Do you find it frustrating?
Do you wish it were different?
Do you feel like an outsider in your own profession?
Have you just started out and need support?
Have you been in the profession for years and feel jaded?
Is your sector always left out of the discussions?
Do you usually dread discussions and meetings?
Are you looking for a sense of: community, eldership, mentorship?
Are you looking to change things?

If so, D&D7; is for you.
click on the link to read the full invitation:

http://dandd7.tumblr.com/post/14507605051/improbables-invitation

D&D is for everyone- the more diverse the crowd the better the conversation. British East Asian artists were not very well represented last year- this is your chance to change this! We'd love there to be plenty of BEA voices at D&D7;- we'd love your voice to be at D&D7;.

The effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011 were unparalleled, with thousands of people killed, communities washed away, and the ongoing general unease surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear crisis. Whilst the human cost of the disaster is undeniable, the impact has also greatly affected the performing arts, with established dramatists from across the generations, as well as rising new ones, all responding to the events of March 11th in their work.

Nobuko Tanaka, journalist for The Japan Times, and a widely-published specialist in the field of contemporary Japanese theatre and dance, has been invited by the Japan Foundation to explore how the cataclysmic events in March have shaped very recent Japanese contemporary theatre, and to examine some of the new questions which dramatists and playwrights are now tackling. Looking at works by playwrights such as Tomohiro Maekawa and Akio Miyazawa, she will consider the way contemporary theatre is responding to what is Japan's worst crisis since World War II, sharing with us a perspective on the disaster which we would otherwise never encounter.

This event is free to attend but booking is essential. To reserve a place, please email your name and the title of the event you would like to attend to event@jpf.org.uk.

Do you want to perform in an epic production at the Young Vic?

We are looking for people of Chinese and East Asian heritage to be part of the community chorus that will join our professional cast each night in our 2012 production of Wild Swans.

You do not need any experience of performing – you just need to be enthusiastic, 18 years or over and absolutely committed to the rehearsal and performance schedule. Friendly and fun workshop auditions take place on 5 & 6 January 2012. Rehearsals will then take place in January and March/April and performances will take place from 13 April – 13 May.

To find out more about Wild Swans and to book your audition place, call the Young Vic on 020 7922 2845 or email wildswans@youngvic.org.


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