In the works:

Shooting Columbus is an evening-length, interdisciplinary performance in which a Yaqui theoretical physicist and Okinawan engineer build a time machine with plans to go back in time to the Bahamian Islands to kill Columbus in 1492. Their story is periodically interrupted by Indians and other people whose lives have been altered in powerful and bizarre ways by the assassination.

The project examines ethics and consequences of time travel, with the United State’s continual genocide of native people serving as a backdrop. It also responds to anti-immigration law SB1070 – the “papers please” clause of which was recently upheld by the Supreme Court – that has spread fear throughout the South Tucson community. Native Americans, who have lived in the region for generations before the U.S.-Mexico border was drawn, are caught in the midst of this ongoing xenophobia.

Three award-winning artists, video/audio designer Adam Cooper-Terán, performance artist/playwright Denise Uyehara and director/dramaturge Rachel Bowditch will develop and premiere this evening-length work in Phoenix in 2015, with plans to subsequently tour nationally and abroad. All three artists hail from highly collaborative, interdisciplinary backgrounds. These artists will also work with a small ensemble of performers to ready the work for its premiere.

This project marks the fourth collaboration between Uyehara and Cooper-Terán since they began working together in 2008. Major past projects include BUS STOP DREAMING, a site-specific, interdisciplinary performance, located at sites of deportation in South Tucson (MAP Fund 2012, in collaboration with Jason Aragon/Pan Left) and ARCHIPELAGO, which explores Yaqui and Okinawan creation stories, reset in contemporary times of war and occupation (National Performance Network Creation Fund).

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• I’m excited to announce I’ll be an Activist/Artist-in-Residence (AAIR) this February and March at the Claremont Colleges in Southern California. Activities include:Opening Performative Talk:
  “Shedding Light and the Occupied Body”
  February 13^th, 2013, 7:00 p.m.
  Benson Auditorium, Pitzer
  Community and class workshop showing:
  Saturday, March 9, 3pm, Kallick Family Gallery at Pitzer College

AAIR is the signature project of the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies at the Claremont Colleges, offering public events and workshops with activists and professional artists representing diverse cultures and art forms that are usually not part of “traditional” college curricula. More…

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Wednesday, January 23, 
7:30 p.m.
Suggested Donation: $5
Casa Libre
228 N. 4th Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85705
view video here

Bus Stop Dreaming is a series multi-disciplinary performances that appear at community sites around Tucson in response to the ongoing deportations of thousands of undocumented immigrants in the city. Bus Stop is a collaboration between documentary filmmaker Jason Aragon of Pan Left Productions and performance artist Denise Uyehara, with Yvonne Montoya of Safos Dance Theater, video/audio artist Adam Cooper-Terán.  interviews and footage from residents of South Tucson.  Made possible in part by the MAP Fund and the P.L.A.C.E./Open Society Fund from the Tucson Pima Arts Concil. More…

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Photos by David Moreno, additional photos by Mikey Estes.  Featuring work by Alex Levy, Terrance Kelsy, Brandon Beren, Dave Moreno, Blake Payan, Tracy Fairfield, Mikey Estes, Yixuan Wang, Morgan Sweazy, Gabriel Lopez, Chungling Paul Liu, Edgar Noriega, Kiley Bishop.

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Traffic Stop.  Border Patrol. Deportation.

Bus Stop Dreaming will appear as part of Safos Dance Theater’s “Vignettes”
House of Neighborly Services
243 W 33rd St, Tucson, AZ

Friday, March 22 at 7pm
Saturday, March 23 at 7pm
Admission: $14 suggested donation, $12 seniors/students
and special free matinee for community on Saturday March 23, 1pm
for more info on community matinee and accessibility call (520) 481-1656
Click here for video

Choreography by Denise Uyehara in collaboration with Yvonne Montoya, video/audio design for Bus Stop Dreaming by Adam Cooper-Terán, based on an interview with Alex by Jason Aragon.  “The Dove” image used with permission © 2009 Ed Braverman.  Photos by JP Westenskow.  Bus Stop Dreaming is supported by the MAP Fund and the P.L.A.C.E. grant from the Tucson Pima Arts Council.  Photos taken at MOCA-Tucson.

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Yvonne Montoya in Bus Stop Dreaming

Saturday, September 29
Bus Stop Dreaming (excerpts) as part of INDEBTED / ENDUEDADO
Museum of Contemporary Art – Tucson
7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
265 South Church Avenue Tucson, AZ 85701
$5 for members, $8 for non-members

Bus Stop Dreaming is a series of short, multi-disciplinary performances that will appear at community sites around Tucson in response to the ongoing deportations of thousands of undocumented immigrants in the city. Bus Stop is a collaboration between documentary filmmaker Jason Aragon of Pan Left Productions and performance artist Denise Uyehara, in collaboration with Yvonne Montoya of Safos Dance Theater, video/audio artist Adam Cooper-Terán, and interviews and footage from residents of South Tucson.  Made possible in part by the MAP Fund and the P.L.A.C.E./Open Society Fund from the Tucson Pima Arts Concil.  More…

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Archipelago by Denise Uyehara and Adam Cooper Teran

To reserve special $10 tickets call (310) 315-1459, give the code word “Denise,” and pay at the door.

Press Kit

Preview articles in Blue Fat’s Triple Echo
and The Rafu Shimpo

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Denise says "Submit!"

Happy 2012!

We’re holding a Prophecy and Origin Myth Contest leading up to the show Archipelago (view video here) at Highways Performance Space.  We want to hear from you!

Here are the questions:
- “What is the origin myth of your people?”
- “What is your prophecy for 2012?”

Winning submissions will be illuminated during Archipelago on FEB. 17 AND 18, 8:30pm, at HIGHWAYS PERFORMANCE SPACE.

I’ll recite the TOP TEN origin myths from an ancient compendium in the prologue for our show.  And I’ll perform the WINNING PROPHECY for 2012 during the show.  Hope to see you there!

All your submissions will be posted here on my website.
Deadline to submit if Feb. 16, 5pm PST.

Enter here:

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(image by Adam Cooper-Teran)

Some highlights:

In 2012 there will be an explosion of mixed-race babies and rivals the post-9/11 baby boom.
- Geo

My prediction is that the world will not end, but that it will be restarted anew.  I don’t think the Maya calendar predicted the end of the world, but the beginning of a new cycle.

- Jennifer Reynolds-Kaye

Prophecy for 2012:  That people will learn from each other, grow, give, receive, and give back through compassion, love, and communication.

- Lee Ann Goya
Origin Myth:
The Rana said to the arrivals in his kingdom in western India. Go back we have no space here. You cannot remain. Their emissary asked for a glass of milk filled to the brim. Then he asked for sugar. Gently he added more and more sugar into the milk and it dissolved.  And the emissary said to the Rana let us stay and we will be the sugar in your milk.  So we stayed.

Prophecy: We will become invisible everywhere outside our ancestral home (Pars in Iran) from which we will disappear.
- Asha Coorlawala

…

Prophecy:  and things shall get lost in 2012…

- Marcel Schaap

….

Origin Myth:

before the war
[after Lawson Fusao Inada]

there was no me before the war
my people’s faces were not even a dream before the war

before the war, we had no ancestors
to imagine us into being

before the war
we didn’t exist
the war made us, shaped us like figurines
out of the mud of battlefields
out of blood spilled by enemies in enmity
out of bloods mingled in the mud

before the war
there was no me
the war was always there with us
my mother and my father were
forever in the war
they battled
over the halves of me like
starving soldiers over rations

I am not a territory

my body is a landmine
and I am always exploding

- submitted by Wei Ming Dariotis, PhD, originally published in 580 Split, Issue 12.

…

Origin Myth: According to legend, the first Vietnamese descended from the dragon lord Lạc Long Quân and the female heavenly angel Âu Cơ. They married and had one hundred eggs, from which hatched one hundred children. Their eldest son Hùng Vương ruled as the first Vietnamese king.

- Erin O’Brien

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Free Workshop at USC
Saturday, February 11, 2012
2 – 4 p.m. –Interactive Performance Workshop
“Performing the Objects of Memory”  Click here for details.

Performance artists Denise Uyehara and Erin O’Brien will lead a hands-on workshop that explores the materialization of memory in everyday objects. Through embodied practice, we will explore how memory becomes embedded in or evacuated from objects. Participants are encouraged to bring an object from their daily lives that holds some meaning them. Objects will also be available at the workshop for participants to use.  Space limited.  To secure your spot please RSVP to: tdc@dornsife.usc.edu

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“Arts, Culture and Democracy” hosted by TPAC on Nov. 17, 9am.  
Temple of Music & Art at the Cabaret Theatre in Tucson, November 17^th, from 8:30 am – 11:30 am.  Admission is free, but seating is limited.

Keynote by Douglas McLennan, founder and editor of ArtsJournal, featuring Ron Barber, District Director for the Office of Gabrielle Giffords; and James Garcia, Co-founder of the Real Arizona Coalition and the Producing Artistic Director of New Carpa Theatre; Denise Uyehara, an award-winning performance artist, writer and playwright.

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