MOCA PERFORMS - Prologue, Part II

What will you pack in your suitcase when you are going somewhere far away and strange, and you don’t know when you will be back? This is the question resonates deeply with many of us immigrants, with our parents and grandparents, and with the senior Chinese ladies who frequented the Homecrest Bensonhurst Community Center in Brooklyn, New York. From these shared experiences, Double Image Theater Lab drew inspiration, culminating in their latest creation: PRELUDE, PART II. Double Image Theater Lab's co-founder Spica Wobbe (鄭淑芸 Shu-yun Cheng) and Red Silk Dancers Company's founder Margaret Yuen transformed the poignant narratives of these women, crafted during weekly art sessions, into a mesmerizing shadow puppet performance. Through the artistry of object manipulation, shadow play, and evocative music, PRELUDE, PART II breathes life into the captivating adventures of these senior Chinese ladies, inviting audiences to embark on a journey of discovery and reflection. The performance runs approximately 35 minutes.

Spica is a puppetry artist originally from Taiwan. Her work has been seen in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Holland, Germany, Israel, Austria and the U.S. Now based in NYC, she works as a puppetry designer, performer and educator since she received her M.A. in Educational Theater from New York University in 2003. She has worked and studied with master puppeteers Damiet van Dalsum (Netherlands), Albrecht Roser, Norbert Goetz (Germany), Peter Schumann and Ralph Lee (U.S.). Spica was the featured artist in “Shadow, Light... Hide & Seek Exhibit” at WenShand Theater in Taipei in 2015 and “Heaven of Puppets Exhibit” at Puppet Art Center of Taipei in 2016. Her recent work “Inseparable” received a LMCC Creative Engagement grant in 2021.

Margaret Yuen is a Native New Yorker who founded the Red Silk Dancers in 1985. She is a bilingual performer and educator who has worked with children, youth, and older adults throughout the tri-state area. She has studied Puppetry with Federico Restrepo and Visual Theater with Renee Philippi and Carlo Adinolfi. She has created many solo puppetry pieces presented at LaMaMa and Dixon Place, including Let’s Dance (life size puppet), Dream (marionette), Sixty (rod puppet), 221 Broome Street (toy theater), We Used to Dance, and Hands. She started collaborating with Spica in 2018 in staging original work including The Three Monsters, Prologue, My Childhood Home, and Hide and Seek.

Host or Publisher Museum of Chinese in America