Participant Bios

Katherine Hui-ling Chou, distinguished professor of English Department, National Central University (Taiwan); founder of ETI, a digital archive collecting over 700 visual recordings of Taiwan’s modern theatre since 1985. After receiving her Ph.D. of Performance Studies at New York University in 1997, Chou co-founded Creative Society Theatre Troupe in Taipei, and has been the troupe’s core member, director and playwright. She is the author of numerous refereed journal articles and chapters of books by MIT (USA), Harvard U. Press (USA), Palgrave (UK), Routledge (Canada), etc. Her theatre works have been discussed and collected in academic publications in Germany, English and Chinese. In 2014, Chou initiated the World Sinophone Drama Competition for the Young Playwright, and has chaired it since then, with the collaborations of nine universities and institutes from China, Canada, Singapore, UK, USA and Taiwan. Chou has served as the director general of Taiwan Association for Theatre and Performance Industry Studies (TATPIS) since 2022.

Born in 1976 in Gumma, Japan. He has realized numerous large scale video installation works and VR works that explore the relationships between community and the individual, between the human body and emotions, and between technology and the future of humanity in biennales and museums all over the world. His solo exhibitions include “Dreamscapegoafuck” at MUJIN-TO Production (2019), "Battlelands" at Perez Art Museum Miami (2018), “Portrait of a Failed Silence,” MUAC, Mexico City (2015), “Trapped Voice Would Dream of Silence,” Arts Maebashi, Maebashi, Japan (2015), and “Project Series 99: Meiro Koizumi” at Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013). Recent group shows include Artes Mundi 9, National Museum Cardiff (2021), Aichi Triennale (2019), “Leaving Echo Chember”, Sharjah Biennale 14 (2018), “Proregress,” 12th Shanghai Biennale (2018), The 9th Asia Pacific Triennale, Brisbane (2018), “Reenacting History,” National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Gwacheon, Korea (2017), “The Grand Balcony,” La Biennale Montréal, Montréal, Canada (2016), Jakarta Biennale, Jakarta, Indonesia (2015), and “Roppongi Crossing,” Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2013). His experimental VR Theater piece “Prometheus Bound,” which was premiered at Aichi Triennale 2019, won the Grand Prize in the 24th Art Division of the Japan Media Arts Festival. In 2021, he won Artes Mundi Prize (Cardiff, UK). His installation works are included in numerous public collections worldwide.

Mining people's personal memories and lived experiences, Hayoun Kwon waves them into historically based collective memories, using space and time to narrate new stories.Kwon plumbs the potential of virtual reality while blending it with animation, documentary, and 3D forms. The resulting work is notable for its juxtaposition of memories and animated virtual spaces, positioning the viewer within a person's private memories to prompt confusion and a questioning of what is real and what is not. Hayoun Kwon graduated from Le Fresnoy-Studio National des art contemporains, France (2011). Her work has been presented in both solo and group exhibitions at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2023), Tribeca Film Festival, NYC (2022), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2021), the Centre Pompidou Paris (2020), DOOSAN Gallery New York (2019), the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2017), among other venues.

Born in Tehran, Iran in the early 80s, Yusef Najafi migrated to the United States in the late 80s and grew up in Northern Virginia. After working various office and customer service jobs, he discovered graphic design at Montgomery College in Rockville, Md. and eventually found his way to the School of Visual in New York City. After graduating from SVA in 2015, Najafi worked at Comedy Central for 8 years before accepting a Visual Effects position at Madison Square Garden where he is currently working.

Jaime Sunwoo is a multidisciplinary artist from New York City who creates film, theater, and art under her production company Free Rein Projects. Her works connect personal narratives to global histories through surreal storytelling. She studied art at Yale University and was a fellow at The Laundromat Project. Her work has been presented at Park Avenue Armory, Abrons Art Center, Flux Factory, and Westbeth Gallery. She has done engagements at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Food and Drink, Yale University, and NYU.
Her animated short documentary Equality Tea was featured in Vogue and Whetstone Magazine and was awarded Best Short Documentary at DisOrient Film Festival and Indy Film Festival.
Her paper puppetry animated film Handwritten premiered at Lincoln Center for New York Asian Film Festival. Handwritten won Best Short Documentary at American Pavilion at Cannes Film Festival, Indy Film Festival, and nominated Best Short Documentary at Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. The film is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video in "Fantastic New Worlds: A Handmade Puppet Dreams Collection".
She's currently booking educational and community screenings for her filmed play Specially Processed American Me, an autobiographical and historical tale centered around the significance of Spam, the canned meat, in Asian America.

Wang Chong is the founder of Beijing-based group Théâtre du Rêve Expérimental. He is the most internationally commissioned Chinese theater director. His works have been performed in more than 20 countries. Wang’s productions include: The Warfare of Landmine 2.0 (2013 Festival/ Tokyo Award), Lu Xun (2016 Beijing News Best Chinese Performance), Teahouse 2.0, (2018 One Drama Awards Best Little Theater Work), Waiting for Godot (live online performance with 290,000 audience), and The Plague (live online performance with artists working from 6 continents). He has been a global nomad since 2022. 

Mengtai Zhang is an artist working with simulation, sound, and installation. His works create ambivalent allegories of power, where personal and sociopolitical factors encounter each other. His recent piece, Diagnosia, examines internet addiction through an autobiographical lens, considering how larger narratives of history, society, and economy are managed to coalesce within a highly personalized and internalized concept. His work has exhibited internationally, including IDFA; Sundance Film Festival; MIFF; Times Art Museum; Tree Art Museum; SNAP Art Center; Quills Fest; VR Film Lab; SIGGRAPH; New Interfaces for Musical Expression; International Computer Music Conference; and Sound and Music Computing Conference. He received fellowship from Wave Farm, IDFA DocLab, and Sylff Association.

Jyana S. Browne (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Premodern Japanese Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Maryland. Her areas of research include early modern Japanese performance; Japanese puppetry; the integration of new technology into traditional theatre; and the intersections of performance, sexuality, and embodiment on stage and in everyday life. Her current book project examines performances of love suicide in eighteenth-century Osaka. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Japanese Language and Literature, Puppetry International, and the edited volumes Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US and Realisms in East Asian Performance.

Tarryn Li-Min Chun is assistant professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. She is author of Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China (University of Michigan Press, forthcoming June 2024) and co-editor with Xiaomei Chen and Siyuan Liu of Rethinking Socialist Theaters of Reform: Performance Practice and Debate in the Mao Era (University of Michigan Press, 2022). Her work has appeared in as Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Prism, Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, TDR, and Asian Theatre Journal, and several edited volumes. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (USA) and numerous other awards.

Van Tran Nguyen (she/her) is a visual artist, filmmaker, and scholar. She was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Her first short film, ERIE COUNTY SMILE released in 2021 and is available for public access via the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Her first full-length feature film, The MOTHERLOAD will be released in the fall of 2024. In 2017, Tran Nguyen earned a master's degree in fine arts from the State University of New York, at Buffalo. Then in 2021, she earned her doctorate in the Philosophy of Electronic Art at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. In 2022 Tran Nguyen was granted the Windgate Artist-In-Residence title and fund which commissioned new work through the Purchase Foundation and in 2024 she became a Race and Digital Justice Fellow. She is currently the Maya Brin Institute for New Performance and Technology Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Tran Nguyen teaches courses in digital filmmaking, new media, the Asian American diaspora, and its many representations.

Mari Boyd is professor emeritus at Sophia University, Tokyo. Her research focus is modern Japanese theatre including performing objects and intercultural theatre. Her major publications are The Aesthetics of Quietude: Ōta Shōgo and the Theatre of Divestiture (Sophia UP 2006) and Japanese Contemporary Objects, Manipulators, and Actors in Performance (Sophia UP 2020). She has contributed chapters to various theatre publications, such as “Modern Meta-patterns,” to Jonah Salz ed. A History of Japanese Theatre (Cambridge UP 2016). She is also a contributing translation editor of Half a Century of Japanese Theater, ten vols. (Kinokuniya 1999-2008), ENGEKI: Japanese Theatre in the New Millennium, nine vols. (Japan Playwrights Association 2016-2024), and an editor of the E-Journal of the Japan Society for Theatre Research (JSTR).

Walter Byongsok Chon is a dramaturg, critic, translator, educator, and theatre scholar from South Korea. He is an Associate Professor of Dramaturgy at Ithaca College in New York, USA. During his sabbatical from Fall 2023 to Spring 2023, he is a Visiting Professor at the School of Drama at Korean National University of Arts. He served as dramaturg at the Yale Repertory Theatre, Yale School of Drama, the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, the Great Plains Theater Conference, the Hangar Theatre, the Civic Ensemble, and the New York Musical Festival. He is the co-author of Dramaturgy: The Basics (Routledge, 2023), a practical guidebook in Routledge’s The Basics series. His writings appeared in Theater, Review, Praxis, The Korean National Theatre Magazine, The Korean Theatre Review, The Korean Theatre Journal, Asymptote, The Mercurian, Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context, the volumes The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy and Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy: Case Studies from the Field, and the online magazine The Theatre Times, for which he is serving as a co-managing editor for South Korea. His produced theatrical translations include Sam-Shik Pai’s Inching Towards Yeolha (Korean to English) and Charles Mee’s True Love (English to Korean). His Korean translation of “A Manifesto for the Future Stage,” developed at MetaLAB (at) Harvard, is published in the 2022 summer issue of The Korean Theatre Journal. He received the 2022 Grant for the Translation of Korean Literary Works from the Daesan Foundation. With this grant, he will translate into English four plays by South Korean playwright Myung-Wha Kim and will complete the translation with dramaturg Anne Hamilton, who will serve as a translation consultant. He was awarded the Spring 2024 Fellowship by the Bogliasco Foundation. He has presented at various conferences, including ALTA, ASTR, ATHE, GSA, LMDA, MATC, NeMLA, and PTRS. He taught theatre at WU St. Louis, Yale School of Drama, University of Nebraska Omaha, and Vassar College. Walter received his B.A. in English from Sungkyunkwan University in Korea, M.A. in theatre studies from Washington University in St. Louis, M.F.A. in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from Yale School of Drama, and D.F.A from Yale School of Drama.

Yizhou Huang 黄宜舟 (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor of theatre in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Saint Louis University. Her work draws on theatre history and historiography, performance studies, and postcolonialism to examine modern and contemporary Chinese theatre and performance, Asian American theatre, and global Asian performance. She received the Helsinki Prize from the International Federation for Theatre Research in 2014 and the New Scholars Prize from the United Kingdom’s Society for Theatre Research in 2020. Her writings have appeared in Asian Theatre Journal, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and Performance Research, among others. She is currently working on a monograph on the history and the present of cosmopolitan performance in Shanghai. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies from Tufts University.

Mina Kawahara (she/they) is a third-year Ph.D. student in the theatre and performance studies department at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research focuses on embodiments of queerness in Asian bodies in Contemporary American musicals. She is also a performer and holds an M.F.A. in musical theater performance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee College. They are also a writer of music and solo musical works, which center around ideas of Asian identity, queerness and belonging.

Kyueun Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in Theatre and Performance at The Graduate Center, CUNY, with an Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Certificate. Her dissertation examines the intersections of technology and spirituality in contemporary East Asian theatre and performance. She delves into how contemporary Asian artists deploy immersive technology to come to terms with changing meanings in subjectivity, spirituality, and virtual reality. By doing so, her project situates posthuman discourse and sensibilities in the context of Asian urban centers and in conversation with Asian spiritual philosophies. Her project, “VR for Theatre Research and Archiving,” received the 2022 Theatre and Technology Fellowship from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Since 2022, she has been a co-convener of the “Performance and VR Working Group” at the American Society for Theatre Research.

Dr. LIN Yatin is a dance scholar who holds a Ph.D. in Dance History and Theory from the University of California, Riverside. She is currently Associate Professor of Dance Studies at the School of Dance as well as at the English-taught International MA Program in Studies of Arts and Creative Industries at the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) in Taiwan, where she also serves as Dean of the Office of International Affairs. Lin has published a monograph Sino-Corporealities: Contemporary Choreographies from Taipei, Hong Kong, and New York, and contributed articles to the Routledge Dance Studies Reader, Keywords of Taiwan Theory, and Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia, as well as edited and co-authored Pina Bausch. Her articles have been translated and published in French, Korean, and Portuguese. Former President of the Taiwan Dance Research Society (TDRS) and former Director of the Society for Dance History Scholars (SDHS), she also served as the Co-Chair of the 10th Taishin Arts Award (2011) in Taiwan. She is on the editorial board of Dance Chronicle and the Arts Review journals.

Zihui Lu is a lecturer at the School of Japanese Studies, Shanghai University of International Studies. Prior to joining the faculty at SISU, she was a junior fellow in the Society of Liberal Arts at the Southern University of Science and Technology. Zihui received her PhD in Japanese Studies from the National University of Singapore, with a focus on the manga, anime, and video game adapted 2.5-dimensional theater. Her current research interests involve popular theater in Japan and China, Japanese popular culture, Chinese IP industry, voice and performance, and media and technology in performance. She teaches courses in Japanese studies, theater studies, and Japanese language.

Justine Wiesinger received her PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures from Yale University in 2018. Her previous research has focused on performance in response to the 2011 disasters in Japan. Publications include “Glacier or Iceberg? Spatial, Temporal, and Contextual Distance in an International Performance of Okada Toshiki’s Time’s Journey Through a Room” in Asian Theatre Journal, which was the recipient of the 2021 Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei Award, and “’Let’s Becquerel!’ The Political Function of Voice in Fukushima Musical Theater” in the most recent issue of Japan Review. Her book project, Performing Disaster: The 3.11 Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Meltdown in Performance is currently under review at Cornell University Press.

Chee-Hann Wu is an assistant professor faculty fellow (postdoc) in Theatre Studies at NYU. She received her Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre from the University of California, Irvine, a joint doctoral program with UC San Diego. Chee-Hann is drawn to performance by and with nonhumans, including but not limited to objects, puppets, ecology, and technology, with a focus on nonhumans’ life, being, and ability to embody and reenact memories that have previously been suppressed. Her current book project considers puppetry a mediated means to narrate Taiwan’s cultural and sociopolitical development, and colonial and postcolonial experiences. Chee-Hann’s most recent work explores video games and VR through the lens of theatre and performance. Chee-Hann is an editor of Taiwan Insight, an online academic magazine of the University of Nottingham. She was the president of the North American Taiwan Studies Association (NATSA), and currently serves on its board of directors. 

James M. Harding is an internationally known scholar whose work focuses on political activism and the arts, the history of experimental theatre, theatre in the 1960s, post 9/11 theatre and performance, the intersection of surveillance and performance, and on performance studies more generally. His most recent monograph is entitled Performance, Transparency and the Cultures of Surveillance (Michigan, 2018). He is the author of three previous monographs: The Ghosts of the Avant-Garde(s): Exorcising Experimental Theatre and Performance (Michigan, 2013), Cutting Performances: Collage Events, Feminist Artists and the American Avant-Garde (Michigan, 2010), and Adorno and "A Writing of the Ruins": Essays on Modern Aesthetics and Anglo-American Literature and Culture (SUNY, 1997).  He has co-edited five anthologies, the most recent of which is entitled The Sixties, Center Stage: Mainstream and Popular Performances in a Turbulent Decade (Michigan, 2017).  His articles have appeared in Performing Arts Journal, TDR, Performance International, Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Modern Drama, and PMLA as well as in numerous anthologies. In 2017, Harding received the year’s “Outstand Article Award” from American Theatre in Higher Education for his article “Incendiary Acts and Apocryphal Avant-Gardes: Thích Quảng Ðức, Self-Immolation, and Buddhist Spiritual Vanguardism” (PAJ, 2017).

Belinda Qian He is an assistant professor in East Asian and Cinema & Media Studies and an affiliate faculty member in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her Ph.D. in cinema and media studies from the University of Washington, Seattle. Before joining the UMD faculty, she worked as a CCS Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and taught global film and media at the University of Oklahoma and UW Seattle. Her work lies at the intersection of film/media studies, art history, and legal humanities, exploring the role of film, photography, video, and other emergent media in policing, punishing, and justice making. She pays critical attention to the history of East Asian and Chinese cinema, exhibitions, and participatory media, associated with atrocity, witnessing, trauma, and sexual violence. Currently, she is working on a book, “Expose and Punish: Trial by Moving Images in Chinese Revolutionary Times.”

As a Public Interest Technology Scholar Program fellow and an affiliate at the Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law and Society (TRAILS) at the University of Maryland College Park, Alexa Alice Joubin is a leading voice in generative AI, the humanities, and social justice issues. She is the inaugural recipient of the bell hooks Legacy Award and holder of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award. She is Professor of English, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she serves as founding Co-director of the Digital Humanities Institute and the Co-director the Taiwan Education and Research Program. As the former Vice President of the Association for Asian Performance, she published a special issue on performing commemoration in Asian Theatre Journal and recently authored Shakespeare and East Asia (Oxford University Press, 2021) and Race (with Martin Orkin, 2018) and edited Sinophone Adaptations of Shakespeare: An Anthology, 1987-2007, among other books. Her work, in venues such as Theatre Survey and Theater Journal, addresses trans/feminism, critical race theory, exile, touring East Asian productions, techno-Orientalism, science fiction, COVID-era performance, digital humanities, and anti-Asian racism.

Marjan Moosavi is an educator, researcher, digital curator, and dramaturg. She holds a Ph.D. in theatre and performance studies from the University of Toronto. She is the Roshan Lecturer in Persian Studies and Performing Arts, the Associate Director of the Roshan Initiative in Persian Digital Humanities, and an affiliate faculty at the School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland, where she designs anti-racist curriculum, mentors graduate students, and spearheads her interdisciplinary projects. Her work, whether academic or artistic, delves deep into the dynamics of theatre-making in the MENA region and theatre’s intersections with gender, history, and politics. Her research has been published in scholarly venues, including TDR, Asian Theatre Journal, and Theatre Topics. She is currently working on a monograph exploring dissident theatre in Iran’s vibrant theatrical landscape. In her free time, she transforms into a clandestine connoisseur of chaos in the kitchen and Nikki’s room.

Yasmin Eubanks is an M.A. student in the theatre and performance studies program at the University of Maryland. Yasmin is originally from Prince George's County Maryland and has had ties to the University of Maryland since pre-school (CYC Alum!). Receiving her B.A. in theater from Temple University, Yasmin has a background in performance, education and historical studies. She has worked with local theaters including Mosaic Theater and Imagination Stage in educational development and curriculum planning. 
Yasmin aims to focus her studies on the history and social influence that African and African American culture has on performance. Her goal is to create an understanding and appreciation of African and African American culture within performance and the entertainment industry. Along with being a scholar and educator, Yasmin is also a published author and accomplished multisport athlete. 

Christian D. Henrriquez (Pronouns: He/Him/His) is a third-year M.F.A. lighting design candidate in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. While design is his primary academic focus, Christian is also a part of the Latin American and Caribbean studies graduate program where he works to combine his artistic/creative endeavors with his research interests. Research interests include Latin American influence on American popular culture; magical realism; queer and Latinx performance, art, poetry, and literature; the effects of the 1980s wars on the Central American diaspora and their art. Christian is passionate about holding space for and telling stories of intersectional, marginalized identities and communities.

Mina Kawahara (she/they) is a third-year Ph.D. student in the theatre and performance studies department at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research focuses on embodiments of queerness in Asian bodies in Contemporary American musicals. She is also a performer and holds an M.F.A. in musical theater performance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee College. They are also a writer of music and solo musical works, which center around ideas of Asian identity, queerness and belonging.