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Year of Graduation

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MFA: Dance

Directing Professor

Jeffery Bullock

Abstract

This thesis explores the complexities of the Asian American identity through the lens of performance and cultural representation. Symbolically using the framework of a metaphorical house, the author cross-examines historical marginalization, cultural misrepresentations, and internalized beliefs and struggles experienced by herself and other Asian Americans who live within white, American supremacist culture. Using her narratives paralleled against racial studies, performance, and visual art, the author asserts that Asian American physicality and expression serve as the foundation for resistance and the reclamation of identity. The author’s research explores the intersection of performance art with issues of vulnerability, typecasting, and cultural appropriation, while advocating for a more Asian-centered future rooted in cultural preservation, invention, and innovation. It is by combining lived experience, history, and art to reimagine Asian American identity through inclusion, acceptance, and the dismantling of colonized perspectives that an Asian utopia can be created. Ultimately, this work aims to show that the future is Asian because through collective understanding of one another, Asian Americans can become who they aspire to be rather than who they are being told to be.

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Performance Access Statement

If you wish to see the creative piece or performance that accompanied this thesis, please complete the Request Form, and you should receive a response from the Dance Department within two weeks.

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