“After a lot of laughter, comes a long cry.” This old Finnish saying was shared with me by a somewhat distant, but beloved, family friend while I was visiting Helsinki last summer. This notion resonated with me and became the root of my current choreographic research. When I returned to the UW for my final year, I knew I wanted to explore the intense emotion this saying evoked in me and how it could propel a choreographic investigation resulting in a dance work. In 2018, I created a dance, Undertow, that explored the broader idea of nostalgia and its often captivating and drowning effects on people. The choreographic process I utilized in creating Undertow, laid a rich foundation for me to expand upon the idea of nostalgia. I began my research on After Everything with the Finnish saying–– looking for meaning, ideas, and images that stood out to me. Coincidentally, on a visit home I discovered an 8mm film reel from 1968 that had hours of candid footage with my mom and uncle as children on it. The first time I watched it, I was brought to tears as I witnessed these young strangers play and explore. The complex emotions of family, personal histories, and longing for a presence in a history that is not directly mine collided with my reaction to the Finnish saying. This intersection became the focus of my research: exploration of familial nostalgia, relationships, and my planned uprooting after graduation. I cast four incredible collaborative dance artists to conduct this dance research with me, inviting them to explore their own reactions to the saying and nostalgia, so we could begin building a communal vessel of knowledge from which to draw movement material. I presented prompts, discussed ideas, and shared sound to facilitate and generate movement material.

Malaysia is a multiracial/ multiethnic country that is rich with many traditional performing arts such as Wayang Kulit and Main Puteri. However, the number of artists practising these traditions is in decline and they are at risk of extinction according to several Malaysian news outlets. This project is dedicated to understanding the challenges faced by these artists and the strategies they use to overcome obstacles to preserve their art form. Tintoy Chuo, a puppeteer of Malay traditional shadow puppet theatre Wayang Kulit, has become my case study in examining Malaysian artists. Through interviews and analyzing Chuo’s online presence, I found some of his challenges include: (1) federal and state funding structures that favour STEM more than the arts; (2) the Malaysian state’s view on arts as tourism; and (3) state government bans on this art form because it is deemed unIslamic. Some of the strategies that Chuo uses to counter these issues are: (1) blending the traditional element with popular culture references, for example, Star Wars; and (2) seeking international recognition of his work through interviews that are published in magazines and aired on news networks. I compare Chuo’s methodology to the transformation Zapin, a Malay traditional dance, underwent in the 1960s when it was blended with Western ballroom dances as documented by Mohd Anis Md Nor. I reveal similarities between the two processes, including: funding, audience, recognition, methodology, inspiration and community. I argue that the concept of “preservation” used in the context of art-making is problematic, and discuss how framing this methodology in terms of “sustainability” can be a model for other artists hoping to see their art form survive into the next generation.

Only recently has mainstream American theatre celebrated minority representation on the stage. Small percentages of ethnically diverse actors perform in American theatre due to character-casting limitations and white male playwrights which dominate theatrical history and limit the representation of our diverse and multicultural world. By adapting the Hebrew Book of Ruth to stage, I hope to contribute a female voice and provide opportunities for women of ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic diversity on the stage. Like Shakespeare’s plays, this adaptation will be written in verse; however, "Pilgrims Far from Home" mimics the style of Hebrew and Ottoman poetry to pay homage to the story’s origins and contribute to the diversity of voices outside of the western poetic style. This story emphasizes female relationships and how our sisterhood can unify people of different walks of life. "Pilgrims Far from Home" brings this ancient religious text into the 21st century by addressing contemporary issues such as otherness, particularly in light of refugee crises. My project aims to contribute to the diversity of contemporary American theatre by using a well-known and multi-cultural story to address and ease the suffering relationships between peoples in our present-day society.

With the rise of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) smart medical devices are becoming widespread, bringing with them concerns about big data and patient privacy and autonomy. This speculative design project serves to explore the politics of smart medical devices and examine the potential motivations of healthcare institutions. Lead by speculative fiction traditions and contemporary research on IoMT, I have developed a near-future dystopian world of capitalist medical surveillance and control through creative writing and digital modelling. My artistic installation consists of a live advertising presentation for a futuristic medical smart device and aims to provoke speculation around provider disbelief of self-reporting, lack of patient choice around data collection, and the policing of patient behavior through tracking devices and remote health monitoring.