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Dan Kwong

@dan.kwong

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Artist of life…

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Performance: “Ghosts Among Us” by Dan Kwong with Chie Saito, performed by Emily Kaori Gruhn, Grace Jenkins, Ryan Torii, Pauline Yasuda, Kuni Yoshida. “Gaman,” written and sung by Nobuko Miyamoto
日本語は最後に⇩⇩⇩

I haven’t been able to stop getting goosebumps ever since the rehearsals.
Coming to America all by myself, I found that playing this first-generation Japanese immigrant (Issei) really resonated with my own life.
It made me realize that we owe so much of where we are today to those who preserved and passed down their culture.
I couldn’t help but think: if I, with my dreams only half-fulfilled, were placed in an internment camp, how would I feel? Even if I wanted to complain, everyone around me was going through the exact same thing, so wouldn’t I have swallowed my grief and given up on myself?
Baseball brought me back. And, of course, the support of my family.

To top it all off, in the scene where Nobuko looks at me and says “Gaman” (endurance), I couldn’t hold back my tears.
I’m so grateful that I’m part of this performance with all great people.
I’ll post more pictures of performance later!!
リハーサルの時からずっと、鳥肌が止まりませんでした。
単身アメリカに渡った私にとって、この一世の役を演じることは、自分自身の人生と深く重なっていました。
私たちが今こうしていられるのは、自分たちの文化を守り、次世代へと受け継いでくれたこの人おかげなのだと、感じました。
もし、夢半ばの私が強制収容所に入れられたとしたら、どんな気持ちになっただろうか――そう考えずにはいられませんでした。不満を言いたくても、周囲の人々も皆同じ境遇に置かれている。そんな状況下で、私は悲しみを飲み込み、自分自身を諦めてしまっていたのではないか……。
そんな自分をを本来の自分へと引き戻してくれたのは、野球(書道)でした。そしてもちろん、家族の支えもありました。

極めつけは、ノブコさんが私を見つめて「ガマン」と声をかけるシーンです。その時ばかりは、あふれる涙をこらえることができませんでした。
この素敵なメンバーと一緒にパフォーマンスできたことは本当に有難いことです。
パフォーマンスがよくわかる写真をまた投稿します！

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This morning, I made a trip out to Santa Monica to meet up with @dan.kwong who's been leading the @manzanar_baseball_project for years. Kwong, along with a team of tireless volunteers, have spent years restoring the baseball field at Manzanar @manzanarnps , once one of the largest WRA concentration camps that held Japanese Americans during WWII.

The NY Times covered the restoration effort two years ago and that's where I saw a photo of Dan wearing the uniform for the Li'l Tokio Giants, formerly the Nisei All-Stars, whose history as a baseball team goes back to the 1950s even though, of course, JAs have been playing baseball for decades before then. Dan's been playing for the team for over 50 years! I had wanted to get a cap ever since I saw the photo and finally got around to making that happen today.

As for the Manzanar Baseball Project: they hosted the first games at the restored diamond in 2024 and there was supposed to be another pair of games last October but the gov't shutdown forced them to cancel.

This year, they're planning on a double-header for Saturday, October 17, and barring bad weather (or another gov't shutdown), those games will be back at Manzanar and I'll be there too (with the cap, natch). For more information on tickets for the games, skip to the last slide.

Thanks to Dan for making time for me this morning plus all the incredible work he, his volunteers, and @great_leap have all done around the Manzanar Baseball Project.

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JUST $25. BIG IMPACT. ❤️ What can a community do when everyone gives a little? A LOT.

If 2,000 people give just $25, together we can raise $50,000 for Great Leap and help create more opportunities for connection, creativity, and community.

👉 Give $25 today at greatleap.org (link in bio)

#Just25 #GreatLeap #Community #SmallActionsBigChanges #LosAngeles

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What a joy to see DEMURE ASIAN RAGE by Leanna Keith and Yeeman “ManMan” Mui at Highways, where I haven’t been in such a long time! Combining taiko, flute, dialogue, movement, soundscape, this performance was moving, poetic, rageful, powerful, graceful, thematizing the microaggressions and more spectacular forms of violence that are part of everyday life for minoritarian subjects, and the ways we survive amid what I’ve called the atmospheric violence of Orientalist hauntings. Leslie K. Gray performed ASL interpretation that became a part of the poetic landscape. She too took up the taiko drumsticks! We were offered index cards to write down microaggressions we’ve experienced; Leanna read them, shouting and screaming, and in a culminating move, we all screamed together! Oh so satisfying.

I was both inspired by the power, grace, and beauty of the performance, and sad that, over my lifetime, things have not improved–or if they have, this young generation is still experiencing many of the same things mine went through. Leela Lee’s ANGRY LITTLE ASIAN GIRL, who launched into rants and flipped the bird at those who would denigrate her, is from the 90s. As someone who uses Kleinian psychoanalytic theory, Ngai’s “ugly feelings”, Hong’s “minor feelings” in her work, I am tuned into rage that can be channeled toward protest and change. More soon, on Asian women and screaming.

Thanks to Deborah Wong for the invitation, and congratulations to Highways and the artists (name here) for this inspiring evening. And great to see Dan Kwong, whose work with Great Leap, Nobuko Miyamoto, is amazing.

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Nobuko teaching on a HOT day in Heart Mountain, WY. #bonodori #heartmountainpilgrimage #120000stories #nobukomiyamoto #japaneseamericanhistory

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Oh, the Places You’ll Go…as an @nbcnews correspondent!

Somehow, this month marks five years since that “first day at NBC” picture in Los Angeles, and my heart is overflowing with gratitude for the opportunities, travel, guidance, and most of all, people I’ve met and worked with along the way.

Heart-wrenching? At times. Freezing/blistering/smoky/frantic? Depends on the day. Early alarm clocks? Often.

Rewarding and a literal dream come true? 100%.

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What stories are hidden in the landscapes we pass every day?

Join artist @Dan.Kwong for Hiding in Plain Sight, an interactive project that uncovers overlooked histories and invites participants to engage with the layered narratives embedded in place. Drawing connections to the camouflage net factories at Manzanar Incarceration Camp and the experiences of those who lived and worked there, the project explores memory, visibility, and what remains hidden in plain sight.

Watch Dan share more about the inspiration behind the work, then join us to experience it firsthand.

#DanKwong #HidingInPlainSight #PublicArt #InteractiveArt

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From our most recent Beach Activation, captured by the amazing @squidlife with Activators: @robin.present @bas_bas_t @tonymarchena @rickydontstop @intoarra_arrabellarose @erindesmond

Emergence is a participatory performance where six performers bury each other neck-deep in sand, then invite the audience into a process of slow uncovering. Through this tactile and physically intimate experience, a relational encounter unfolds between performer and participant, with conversations moving through themes of rebirth, death and burial, sensation, touch, care, and the conditions that allow something—or someone—to emerge.

Through the collective act of excavation, Emergence invites participants to move past discomfort, acknowledge what resides beneath the surface, and uncover what is asking to be revealed—not individually, but in connection with others. It explores the ethics of touch and care, and the possibility that emergence is not something we do alone, but something we participate in together.

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In the midst of neo-fascist subterfuge and its long-overdue exposure, what a pleasure it was to return to Highways Performance Space & Gallery for Leo Garcia’s Leo Garcia Is Dead / The Canonization of St. Leo.
Many know Leo as the gutsy, funny, indefatigable executive director who has guided Highways for more than three decades. We all started together back then. His almost saintly commitment to curating art for communities in crisis began during the AIDS epidemic and continues into the present moment.
The house was packed. What followed was a remarkable blend of theater of the absurd, autobiography, existential reflection, realism, tap dancing, humor, and fourth-wall-breaking intimacy. It felt like writing with blood: personal, vulnerable, and deeply alive.
The evening culminated with Leo’s canonization by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, followed by a lavish dinner and dessert. Earlier that morning, I had enjoyed a warm phone conversation with Tim Miller, making it especially meaningful to reconnect with fellow survivors and artists including Dan Kwong, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, and John Fleck.
It struck me once again that Leo Garcia is one of our most brilliant and effective artists. Years ago, Highways launched me toward studying the internal theater of the mind. It was grounding to return home, and to witness Leo continuing his lifelong exploration of inside and outside, self and community, art and survival.#highwaysperformancespace #oerformanceart #queerhealing #leogarcía

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The Manzanar Baseball Project grand opening doubleheader will features players from the Japanese American baseball leagues of California. Read more at the link in bio. 📸: @aaronrapoport

#manzanarbaseballproject #baseball #santamonica #santamonicaca #santamonicacalifornia

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#actor #onemanshow #sierramadreplayhouse #theatre #supportlocalartist ALEX XANDER LUU
@alex98mos @lanisfashion @jaimee_i @sommertimecasting @dan.kwong @kevinbostoncao

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