top of page

PRELUDE Festival 2023

PERFORMANCE

VISA - Mon Amour

Theresa Buchheister, The Brick, Karuna Shinsho

Theater

English

60 Mins

7:00PM EST

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA

A Panel Performance


Next to developing and presenting the work of pioneering emerging artists and career experimenters The Brick Performance Space actively support global artists without work permits or permanent visas in their dream to live and work in New York City.

Now Theresa Buchheister turned the work-in-process into a panel performance. Artist will apply during the session for their visa, panelist will talk about the impossible procedure of obtaining a visa, work permit or a green card for global artists. Audiences will get a close look at the the innumerable complex challenges diaspora artists face in New York City.


The panelists are M. Can Yasar, Lianne Elsouki, Rawya El Chab, John Phillip Faienza and HanJie Chow.


Moderated by Karuna Shinsho.


Produced by Theresa Buchheister and The Brick Theater


With Performances from the Panelists


Theresa Buchheister will receive their PRELUDE’23 Award after the VISA — Mon Amour presentation.

Content / Trigger Description:

HanJie Chow (he/him/his) Multidisciplinary theatre artist: Webster’s Bitch (Playhouse on Park), Boxes (Creating Apart ’21, London), Sky of Darkness (TheatreLab), Bike America, The Richard Project, Lady Lucy, “Virtual Love in Lockdown” (Fentress Films), “Ondeh Ondeh". American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Company 2019. Collaborates behind-the-scenes in costuming and as a photographer: Merrily We Roll Along (Broadway & NYTW), POTUS (Broadway), KPOP (Ars Nova), Underground Railroad Game (Ars Nova), hanjiechow.com

M. Can Yasar is a New York based Turkish actor, writer, and singer/songwriter. His shows written and performed by him include, "A Hundred Dollar Bill,” at the United Solo Festival at Theater Row, received the “Best Autobiographical Show” award; "Smoke Point" performed at Interrobang!? at The Brick; an extended draft of "A Hundred Dollar Bill," part of the New Works Series at TADA Theatre; "Master of Time", including Yasar’s original songs, at the New York Theatre Festival at Theater Latea, where he was nominated as "Best Singer." Yasar most recently created “Only Place I Belong”, an autobiographical musical written and composed by him and opened at The Tank. Later the musical had the following concert performances at the Brick Theater. He graduated from Marymount Manhattan College in Theater Arts, and received his MFA from University of South Carolina where he also taught beginning acting for two years.

Lianne Elsouki is an actor, theater maker and teaching artist based in Brooklyn. Hailing from Beirut where she innately found herself indulging in surrealist and absurdist theater, her approach of working with youths and teaching theater sharpened her psychological lens and influenced her artistic process. Her most recent work-in-progress that previewed at the Brick’s :?!New Works Festival was a psychomagic act titled PANICMOM. Lianne has performed in One Night at the Target Margin theater. For the Exponential Festival, she collaborated in creating Epikononia as well as staged managed The Gambler.

Rawya El Chab is a theater maker and teaching artist based in New York City. Growing up in post-Taef accord Beirut following the civil war, Rawya recognizes the role of art as a critical space for suspending states of emergency and fostering social, ethical, and aesthetic reflections. She values art as a means to generate an oral history that escapes the control of power. Since relocating to New York, Rawya has been actively engaged with Target Margin Productions, contributing both as a performer and a dedicated teaching artist. Additionally, she has co-created three notable productions: "The Meltdown," featured in the Global Forms Fest, "The Gambler," and "Epikoinonia," both integral parts of The Exponential Festival. Currently, Rawya is in the process of developing her inaugural solo piece titled "Loula, The Pearl of the Bekaa," scheduled for presentation at La Mama Theater in February 2024. In her continued artistic journey, Rawya El Chab remains committed to pushing the boundaries of storytelling and performance, offering unique insights and experiences to her audiences.

John-Philip Faienza is a Canadian theatre and video artist of Argentinian and Italian settler descent living and working in NYC. His performance work has been included in the SummerWorks and Rhubarb festivals for contemporary performance in Toronto, and the Exponential Festival in Brooklyn. He’s spent a lot of time supporting new artistic works as a technician and Production Manager, including as an Associate Producer for the Performa Biennial, Production Coordinator for LMCC’s River to River Festival, and as Technical Coordinator at Rooftop Films. In Toronto, he’s worked with companies Aluna, Crow’s, Obsidian, Nightswimming, ARC, Public Recordings, the Theater Centre, and at the gloriously dead Videofag. He’s a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. He likes to walk, drive, and bike long distances, often in search of really good food.

Karuna Shinsho is an award-winning broadcast journalist that has worked for various international news organizations throughout Asia and the United States. From 1989 to 2001, she was anchor and/or reporter for NHK Television, Japan and New York, Asia Business News, Singapore and CNN International, Hong Kong, then in 2004 for Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Singapore. Her writing on "Japanese Management" has been published in Asia's New Crisis: Renewal Through Total Ethical Management (Asia: John Wiley & Sons Pte Ltd., 2004). After her career in journalism, Karuna pivoted to focus on her passion for music. She released her debut album of jazz standards and bossa nova classics in 2021. Her album, To Love Again, with songs in English, Portuguese, and Japanese, was nominated for Best Jazz Album at the 2022 WAMMIE Awards in Washington, D.C. She is currently working on her second album of bossa nova tunes which will be dedicated to the Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. Karuna obtained a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs with a regional concentration in East Asia from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University in New York and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the Department of Comparative Culture, Sophia University in Japan.

Theresa Buchheister is the Artistic Director of The Brick Theater, Co-Artistic Director of Title:Point, Founder and Co-Curator of The Exponential Festival. In addition to writing, directing, performing and producing theater, Theresa works as a voice over director, performer, engineer and teacher. Theresa has directed hundreds of audiobooks (How Music Works by David Byrne, Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus, The Short Stories of Lydia Davis, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky) and some fun cartoons (BoyGirlDogCatMouseCheese, Pokemon, Winx Club, Denver), as well as narrating spicy novels and voicing villains. Theresa teaches at HB Studio.

Watch Recording

Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023

bottom of page