RESERVE & PURCHASE YOUR TIX NOW!

We are in the middle of a snowstorm right now...
What better way than to spend your time making plans for the future...

Come see this project in New York City in May!
(If you're coming from out-of-town, I can even help you find cheap lodging!)

University Settlement has set up the ticketing through Brown Paper Tickets and you can purchase/reserve your tickets here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/98414
Alternatively you can also do a search for "Alaine Handa" or "Chameleon" on BrownPaperTickets.com

The performances are May 13, 14, 15 @ 7:30 pm each night at University Settlement's Speyer Hall theater.
184 Eldridge St (Corner of Rivington), New York, NY

Watch a preview of Yoonjung's solo below from our tech rehearsal at WAX Works performance this past fall.

WAX Works tech rehearsal, Oct. 25, 2009 from Alaine Handa on Vimeo.

Families in Global Transitions (FIGT) conference in Houston, TX

Join me at the 12th Annual Families In Global Transition Conference in Houston, TX on March 4-6, 2010

I am thrilled to have been selected to receive one of their prestigious David Pollock Scholarships this year! In addition I was also selected to present & perform at the conference.

Speakers and attendees registered to date will be traveling from: Brazil, Switzerland, France, Japan, Germany, Thailand, Norway, Chile, Iceland, South Africa, Canada, the UK and the United States

And will include: The World Bank, U.S. Department of State, various U.S. American Universities, European Embassy Offices, University of Switzerland, missionary workers, University of Iceland, writers, coaches, U.S. Military Branches, publishers, corporations, MIT, international schools and many more who empower individuals living abroad.

Register today and join me to become a part of this 2010 dynamic worldwide community ready to share cross-cultural education, top research and best practices to support families in global transition across all sectors. And hurry, the $110/night hotel rate only goes until Feb 16th!


Here is the description of my concurrent session at the conference:

The Expat Experience through the Arts (5B)
Alaine Handa

The arts (visual and performing) are used to experience culture as well as a form of communication and therapy. Sometimes when our world is constantly changing and we struggle to keep up, the arts can play a wonderful tool to describe your experiences and feelings in a non-verbal way. This is a lecture/demo with Third Culture Kids in the arts showing their experiences through photography, video, music, drama, and dance.

I will also be screening a short preview of "I am a TCK" film:

A Short Screening of "I am a TCK" (1B)
Alaine Handa

"I am a TCK," directed/produced by Alaine Handa, is a documentary film that includes interviews with third culture kids describing their experiences growing up among worlds, frustrations with non-TCKs upon their return to their passport country, their future plans that are affected by their TCK upbringing, and how they view the world around them. This session is a short screening of the film with a short discussion to address the issues that might happen when moving to a new country or returning "home" and the ways to cope.

Rehearsal Report

The showcase at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) conference on Jan. 8, 2010 went really well. We had a great audience and some folks from InterNations came to the showcase. I decided that week to interlace the dance sequences with the documentary film I've been working on. The interviews I've conducted with Third Culture Kids have spurred a lot of inspiration for the dance. It is amazing to meet and talk to interesting group of Third Culture Kids from all different walks of life. Their stories and experiences are touching and I hope that this project will help them cope with any TCK difficulties they may face. After the showcase, I met some great people who could relate to being a global citizen/multi-cultural/cross-cultural individual and dealing with the same or similar problems that most TCKs face.


Here are the pictures by awesome dance photographer, William Hebert:

















The past couple weeks in rehearsal, I've spent working with each individual dancer on their respective solos. Their solo material is created collaboratively between choreographer (me) and the dancer. I had each dancer come up with a prose or poem about a favorite memory they have and then I had them extract specific words out of the original. The original movement phrases were created from those words. I gave specific movement ideas to each individual dancer based on their phrases to formulate a truly individual story that is unique to the dancer. The finishing touch will be interviewing each dancer and juxtaposing their words to their solo.

I hand-picked each dancer not just based on technical ability, I picked each dancer because of her background story. Her cultural upbringing, her personality, her openness to learning about other cultures. It was important to me to have dancers that can relate to the project and invest their time in rehearsal. (Dancers if you're reading this, THANK YOU! You inspire me!) They come from a variety of cultural backgrounds (more on this later...) and it is stunning to see this cultural exchange in rehearsal every week. :-)

Association of Performing Arts Presenters & Open Performance

We will be showcasing at this year's upcoming Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) on Friday, Jan. 8, 2010 at Dance New Amsterdam, 280 Broadway (entrance on Chambers St) at 9:10-9:30 pm. For more information about the showcase please visit: http://www.dnadance.org/site/performances/apap-2010/friday-1810/

All showcases are free for APAP attendees and the public (limited seating).

If you can't make it on Friday, we will also be showing the dance portion without lights and in the studio at Movement Research's Open Performance Series on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010 at Dance Theater Workshop's Studios, 219 W. 19th St. For more information about this please visit: http://www.movementresearch.org/performancesevents/openperformance/

Photography by Wazha Dube

TCK Wazha Dube submitted a series of photographs for this project. Take a look at the sampling below.

All photographs & descriptions are copyright of Wazha Dube


1. Act of God

I wouldn't say I'm a religious person, if anything i'm spiritual. We often spend our lives running around from one pace to the next with few opportunities to stop and 'smell the roses'. When I'm able to capture pictures like this it's hard not to believe in something greater than yourself and even harder to not to stop appreciate the beauty of the world that we live in.

Location: Kane'ohe, O'ahu, Hawai'i







2. Empire State of Mind

I've had the opportunity to live in a series of different countries in everything from a urban to rural area and everything in between. Some say that if you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere. Some also say that New York City is the ultimate TCK city... For many TCKs, life is a constant search for somewhere were we can be comfortable without thinking about our moving average, for me NYC is one of those places.

Location: New York, New York







3. Forward into the Unknown

For most of us, we have little to no control over the first eighteen years of our lives. We are often giving a destination and then we're sent into somewhere in the world that can be so foreign from what we're used to it almost feels like another planet. This photo represents the fact that we are so often en-route to the unknown that after a while you just start going with the flow. Just like the river, life is always changing and you won't know where you're actually headed until can actually see the end destination, but even when you get there, it's not the destination that matters but the journey itself.

Location: Yangtze River, China







4. No matter where you go, don't ever forget where you're from...

We spend our lives hopping from one place to the other, adopting more cultures and and histories of countries that we are not part of. So often do we see the beauty of other countries that we sometimes forget what makes the places we actually come from so amazing.

Location: Chobe Game Reserve, Botswana







5. Celebrate Originality

As TCKs, our lifestyles allow us to get along with anybody, whether TCK or Non-TCK. Nevertheless, even with our own TCK peers, we all come from different places, with different backgrounds and different stories. The fact that no one has a life that is an exact copy of our own is always something to be proud of, so it's only natural to be proud of not only our heritage and background but also everything that makes us so different.

Location: Beijing, China

Sign up with iGive and support this project!

iGive.com is going to attempt to donate $5,000 in just 24 hours to Alaine Handa & dancers and other causes.

For each person who joins iGive using the special link below and does just one web search on our site between now and noon Thursday, They are going to give Alaine Handa & dancers a dollar.

5,000 new members, $5,000. No purchase necessary.


http://www.igive.com/welcome/warm_reg_promo.cfm?m=640482

WAX Works Tech Rehearsal

WAX Works tech rehearsal, Oct. 25, 2009 from Alaine Handa on Vimeo.