Asian American Arts Alliance

2007 HONOREES

Willa Kim, a Korean-American, started life as a painter in Los Angeles. But fate thrust her into the glamorous world of Karinska and the great Raoul Pène du Bois at Paramount Studios. There she began her apprenticeship and transformation from painter to costume designer. She is proudest of the innovations she introduced to dance costumes: her breakthrough use of stretch fabrics and the painting techniques she pioneered, using this exciting new fabric to combine her background as a painter and her new profession as a designer. Although considered one of the foremost designers of dance, with over 170 dance and ballet productions to her credit, she prefers the more liberating challenges of opera and theatre.

Some of the inspiring directors and choreographers she has worked with are Glen Tetley, Jiri Kylian, Robert Joffrey, Tommy Tune, Bob Fosse, Jack Cole, Michael Smuin, Eliot Feld, Margo Sappington, John Butler, Kenneth Macmillan, Ramon Oller, Jonathan Miller, and Bliss Hebert.

She received Tony Awards for Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies and Tommy Tune’s The Will Rogers Follies. She also received Tony Award nominations for Bob Fosse’s Dancin’, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance, Peter Allen’s Legs Diamond, and Joel Grey’s Goodtime Charley.

Her Drama Desk Awards are for Jean Gènet’s The Screens, Maria Irene Fornes’ Promenade, and Sam Shepard’s Operation Sidewinder. Her Obie Awards are for Robert Lowell’s trilogy The Old Glory and Lonie Robertson’s Woman Before a Glass. She received Emmy Awards for Michael Smuin’s The Tempest and A Song For Dead Warriors.

She has designed opera for Santa Fe Opera (Turandot, The Magic Flute, Rossignol, The Stag King, Help, Help, The Globolinks!) and at the Chicago Lyric Opera (Tosca) among others.

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Kal Penn is a leading Hollywood film and television actor of South Asian (Gujarati) descent. Penn’s feature film debut came in 1998 in Express: Aisle to Glory. He has since appeared in American Desi, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, Malibu’s Most Wanted, A Lot Like Love, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Dude, Where’s the Party?, Love Don’t Cost a Thing, Superman Returns, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Epic Movie, The Namesake, and will be a part of the upcoming Harold & Kumar 2. Penn was featured in The Lonely Island’s rejected Awesometown MTV pilot music video, along with his friend Brandon Routh (who played Superman in Superman Returns). Penn also played one of Lex Luthor’s henchmen in Superman Returns. In January 2007, Penn appeared in the first four episodes of the sixth season of 24 as villain, Ahmed Amar. Also in January 2007, he appeared in the television show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, where he played a recognition-starved rapist and murderer. In May 2007, Penn received the Asian Excellence Award for Outstanding Actor for his performance in The Namesake. This fall, Penn will appear in the hit TV show, House.

In spring 2008, Penn will serve as visiting professor of Asian American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He will teach two courses: “Images of Asian Americans in the Media,” and “Contemporary American Teen Films.”

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Chief Marketing Officer of Bad Boy Entertainment and Senior Vice President of Marketing at Atlantic Records, Eric Wong oversees and plays an integral role in the creation, development, and execution of marketing strategies for artists on both the Bad Boy and Atlantic Records labels. In his current position, he works with a diverse roster of artists including: P. Diddy, Yung Joc, Cassie, Danity Kane, and The Academy Is...

Multi-platinum recording artist and Bad Boy Entertainment founder P. Diddy enthuses that “Wong brings tremendous knowledge and experience, a great personality, and non-stop energy to his post. We have been ramping up our operations, and we are now on fire with a chart-topping roster of new and established Bad Boy artists. Eric is exactly the kind of marketing guru we need to develop and implement our artistic vision, and keep everyone at Bad Boy and Atlantic aware and focused.”

Atlantic Records President Julie Greenwald adds, “He is an amazing talent, with great marketing chops, a total devotion to artist development, and creativity and energy to burn. At Island, he worked with everyone from Mariah Carey to Fall Out Boy, and that boundary-crossing experience makes him perfect to tackle the diversity of music coming from the Bad Boy and Atlantic camps.” Before his current post at Bad Boy/Atlantic, Wong served as Vice President of Marketing at The Island Def Jam Music Group, developing marketing campaigns for Mariah Carey, Bon Jovi, Fall Out Boy, Hoobastank, Christina Milian, and Sum 41 among others, as well as working with the Russell Simmons Music Group. Previously, he worked at V2 Music, serving as product manager for Moby.

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ARTISTIC DEDICATIONS

Everyone loves a Cinderella story. In 2006, the glass slipper belonged to Cassie, thanks to her smash #1 single, “Me & U.” Its infectious, seductive sound has taken radio, clubs, and iTunes by storm. Cassie is also the first artist to break on such a large scale after being discovered from her MySpace page. Her debut Bad Boy/NextSelection album skyrocketed to the #2 position on the Billboard Album Charts. With a new album and a starring role in the movie Step Up 2 coming out in February 2008, Cassie is ready to take on the world.

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Gwin Joh Chin began her career at The New York Times in 1962, as a dictaphone transcriber and, after 40 years in several departments – including 15 years in the Magazine section and 17 years in Arts & Leisure in various editorial positions – she retired as the magazine production editor in 2006. In addition to writing about the arts and travel for The Times and other publications, Chin reviewed dance for the Village Voice and New York State Council on the Arts. She is a Board member of The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation, which supports nonprofit groups, and a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women.

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Margaret Cho is one of the most prolific and critically acclaimed comedians of our time. Born and raised in San Francisco, she made her stand-up debut at the age of 16. Comedy awards and critical raves landed her the short-lived ABC sitcom, All-American Girl. In 1999, her groundbreaking one-woman show, I’m The One That I Want, chronicled that ill-fated sitcom, and became a best selling book and a concert film that grossed more per print than any film in history. Cho subsequently launched three sold-out national tours, turning each into a concert film. A true entertainment pioneer, she can currently be seen in her Off-Broadway show, The Sensuous Woman, a variety show created by and starring Cho, and featuring a supporting cast of renowned burlesque performers and emerging comics.

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SPECIAL PERFORMERS

Fred Ho is a Chinese American composer, baritone saxophonist, leader of the Afro Asian Music Ensemble, the Monkey Orchestra and co-lead CALIENTE! CIRCLE AROUND THE SUN with poet Magdalena Gomez. He has over 15 recordings as a leader and a new DVD, THE BLACK PANTHER SUITE. He is currently working on an opera with writer Quincy Troupe entitled MR. MYSTERY: THE RETURN OF SUN RA TO SAVE PLANET EARTH. His most recent martial arts samurai sword ballet and music-theater epic DEADLY SHE-WOLF ASSASSIN AT ARMEGEDDON! with writer Ruth Margraff, had its world premiere in Philadelphia in June 2006. In 2009, Ho and Margraff will unleash their newest blockbuster, DRAGON VS. EAGLE at the Apollo Theater and the BAM Next Wave Festival, co-produced with Peregrine Arts.

www.bigredmediainc.com
www.voiceofthedragon.com

"... a digital wonderwoman." --Sekou Sundiata
"...a one-woman orchestra." -- DJ Spooky

Bora Yoon is a performance artist, composer, and multi-instrumental sound architect, innovating everyday found objects, ancient and traditional instruments, and electronics in various site-specific environments. Recently featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for composing music with cell phones, she has performed at Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim, and Carnegie Hall and designed live sound compositions for architect Frank Gehry and in Brooklyn’s 55,000 sq. ft. empty McCarren Park Pool. She has toured her experimental soundwork with poet Sekou Sundiata (the 51st (dream) state), tabla artist Suphala (protégé of Zakir Hussain), and media philosopher DJ Spooky’s Subliminal Strings at festivals and universities internationally – and has performed with Meredith Monk, Kaki King, members of Bang On A Can All Stars, NY Fringe, multimedia artist Luke Dubois (Harvestworks, Columbia), and beatbox artists Adam Matta and Taylor McFerrin, garnering awards from the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, Billboard, and the Arion Music Award committee. Her forthcoming EP Sons Nouveau is due for release in 2007! www.borayoon.com

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Critically acclaimed DJ Rekha embarks on the next chapter of her career with the release of her debut album - DJ Rekha Presents Basement Bhangra. Nominated “Best DJ” by New York Magazine, selected by The New York Times Magazine as “one of the ten women of downtown music (3/17/02)” and named one of the most influential South Asians in the United States by Newsweek magazine (3/22/04), DJ Rekha is a cultural instigator who has put bhangra music on the map in North America. When not hosting her legendary Basement Bhangra and Bollywood Disco nights, DJ Rekha, the activist, is raising funds and awareness for a diverse range of causes. www.myspace.com/djrekha

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EMCEE

Azhar Usman is among the world’s leading Muslim stand-up comedians. As co-founder of the internationally acclaimed “Allah Made Me Funny--Official Muslim Comedy Tour,” he has performed in over a dozen countries on five continents. He and the Tour have been featured in over 100 major world media outlets, including all of the network TV channels, NPR, MTV Desi, and the world’s major newspapers. He has performed with his favorite stand-up comics, including Jim Gaffigan, Russell Peters, Dave Chappelle, and the late Mitch Hedberg. Azhar recently completed production of “Allah Made Me Funny—Live in Concert!,” a feature-length concert/documentary film, and he is creator and star of his own Web-based sketch comedy show, Tinku’s World. His website is www.azhar.com and he frequently visits Facebook.

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Gala Co-Chairs

Nusrat Durrani is General Manager/Senior Vice President of MTV World and has been with MTV Networks for 12 years in various positions in strategy, business development, e-commerce and digital media. He was part of the team that launched MTV.COM and initiated MTV’s push into new media. Most recently, he launched MTV Desi, MTV Chi and MTV K, the highly acclaimed channels super serving Asians in the U.S. He is currently strategizing a global, multi-platform pop culture project for MTV Networks. Nusrat is a pop culture innovator, photographer and writer who recently received the 2007 Pinnacle Achievement Award from the Asian American Business Development Center.

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B.D. Wong is the only actor ever to have received all five major New York Theater awards for a single role. For his performance in “M. Butterfly,” his Broadway debut, he received the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Theater World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award, and the Tony Award.

Wong gained notice as a cast regular on HBO’s critically acclaimed series Oz, playing the resilient prison priest Father Ray for the show’s five-season run. His other television credits include a starring role in ABC’s All-American Girl and HBO’s telefilm And the Band Played On, as well as guest-starring roles on Welcome to New York, Chicago Hope, The X-Files, Bless This House and Shannon’s Deal; and a returning role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Wong has also appeared in more than 20 feature films, including Jurassic Park, The Freshman, Father of the Bride (1 & 2), Seven Years in Tibet, Executive Decision, The Salton Sea and Stay. Wong can also be heard as the voice of Shang in the Disney animated films Mulan and Mulan II.

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