Jen Liu >< Fred Ho /// “Electropore” >< “Warrior Sisters”
This Video Viewing Room features a work-in-progress video by artist Jen Liu, Pink Slime Caesar Shift: Electropore (2021), alongside excerpts from the video recording of the sci-fi opera from which this new work draws inspiration: Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors by composer and musician Fred Ho and librettist Ann T. Greene, staged at The Kitchen in 2000. Writing by Liu, archival materials related to Warrior Sisters, and reference materials for Electropore accompany the videos.
This presentation is organized by Alison Burstein, Curator, Media and Engagement.
Jen Liu, Pink Slime Caesar Shift: Electropore, 2021 (work in progress)
...I believe that a lost ship,
steered by tired, seasick sailors,
can still be guided home to port.
— “I Believe In Living,” Assata Shakur
What can power do when it’s locked inside a closed system?
Four Black and Asian womxn in four spaces supply the energy and feedback for each other’s work. This could be said to be the foundation of a practical coalition politic. Discussions of coalition almost inevitably focus on goals, rightly so. But goals sublimate differences, and if that’s allowed to go on long enough, the body (politic) might explode. So: outside of the limelight, outside the speculative and the theoretical, what do Black and Asian womxn share?
Just a slight change in perspective changes the story. Four nameless Black and Asian womxn form a closed system of electric generation, for meaningless gadgets. Their bio-power powers the infinite disposable whatever.
These womxn share a life of narrow spans of movement, confined imaginaries, impossibly reduced windows of time, the body horror of a self compressed into bits of fixed knowledge, shareable trauma PDFs, tragedy spectacle service work, and emotional capital turned into current. Is there hope for a coalition politic there? At least it begins with looking at what is shared directly in the face.
Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene’s Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors (presented at The Kitchen in 2000) is"the imaginary meeting of four legendary female revolutionaries": Fa Mulan, Nana Yaa Asantewaa, and Sieh King King, who come to aid of Assata Shakur. With flashes of time- and space-altering lightning, made by the magic of Fa Mulan, Shakur escapes safely to Cuba.
But you, in real life: your lightning’s been stolen. It’s been absorbed into the network grid. Here you find yourself sitting alone in a pod, always alone, a never-ending list of tasks that will only deliver you back to where you are right now, no escape. Meanwhile, every part of you is being used – you have to offer up every part of you on the marketplace, as if nothing could bring you more joy.
Electropore is a container for multiple threads of research and development. Its structure originates in the ongoing body of work, Pink Slime Caesar Shift, and the genetic engineering process of electroporation, a method of introducing new DNA through electroshocking living cells in pink solution. This piece “applies” the electroshock method to Warrior Sisters, drawing together elements from its libretto and musical composition, “electroshocking” them through design harmonization, midi transcription, and acid house digitization.
—Jen Liu
Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors at The Kitchen, November 28–December 2, 2000
Excerpts from performance recording
Excerpts from press release (left) and program (right)
Archival Materials Related to Warrior Sisters
Liu selected the archival materials below as a way to consider Warrior Sisters as an ongoing collaboration between composer and musician Fred Ho, librettist Ann T. Greene, and the other members of the production team—shared labor that ran parallel to the premise of the opera itself: future-building in coalition. By highlighting these working documents from the archive, the links between production and archival preservation become visible.
Correspondence between Ann T. Greene and Fred Ho, November 1993 (left) and September 1994 (right)
Rehearsal images, BAM Attic Studio, October 13, 1994
Score for Act 3, Scene 1, “She Who Runs When the Sun is Sleeping Will Stumble Many Times”
Excerpts from synopsis
Floor plan sketch (left) and schematic (right) for The Kitchen
Costume maintenance plan for The Kitchen
Review published in The New York Times, December 2, 2000
Record of Performances of Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors
October 3, 1995: Workshop development of 4 songs from work at the Brooklyn Academy of Music sponsored by 651 Arts Center
May 19, 1996: Concert presentation of 10 songs from work to capacity audience at Aaron Davis Hall New Works series
January 7–8, 1998: Semi-staged presentation of first act excerpts from work at Aaron Davis Hall
November 28–December 2, 2000: Full-staged production at The Kitchen (five performances)
September 29, 2001: Full-staged production at Arizona State University-Tempe fine arts series (one performance)
Reference Materials for Electropore
Jen Liu is a New York-based artist working on topics of labor biopolitics, feminist mutation, and the re-motivating of archival artifacts. In her current body of work, Pink Slime Caesar Shift, videos, painting, dance, installation, and biomaterial blur the line between the speculative-fictional and speculative-seeming-but-all-too-real, as methods of global industrial management and genetic engineering are mis-appropriated to model covert information networks for the use of labor activists. She has received the Creative Capital Grant, LACMA Art + Technology grant, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Pollock Krasner grant, and her work has shown at MoMA, the Whitney Museum, The Kitchen, and the New Museum in New York; Royal Academy and ICA in London; Kunsthaus Zurich; Kunsthalle Wien; and the 2014 Shanghai Biennale and 2019 Singapore Biennial, among others. jenliu.info.
Ann T. Greene is an anthologized fiction writer and poet, and librettist for composers such as Leroy Jenkins, Fred Ho, Roberto Pace, Chambliss Giobbi, and Whitney George. She has collaborated on operas, dance theatre, and song with Blondell Cummings, Peggy Choy, Tom Buckner, and Bill T. Jones, with their productions traveling throughout the US and Europe. Greene served as Guest Curator, Literature at The Kitchen in the 1990s.
Fred Ho (1957–2014) was a Chinese American composer, baritone saxophonist, band leader, writer, political/cultural activist, co-founder of Scientific Soul Sessions, and producer. Prior to the presentation of Warrior Sisters at The Kitchen in 2000, he worked as a construction worker and retired from the role of hand-to-hand combat specialist trained in stealth assault techniques. His production All Power to the People! The Black Panther Ballet Suite premiered at The Kitchen in 1999, and his work Once Upon a Time in Chinese America…A Martial Arts Ballet and Music/Theater Epic toured the U.S. in 2001 and made its final stop at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival.
The following documents provide additional context on Ho’s thinking and body of work (shared here with permission from the Fred Ho Estate):
"How I am NOT white: A Response to Eric Liu’s The Accidental Asian from Fred Ho, an Actual Asian!"
Fred Ho Listing of Assets as of May 1, 2011: Intellectual Property
Manan Desai, "A long march toward unity: Afro-Asian Collaborations" in Against the Current No. 138, January/Feburary 2009. Review of Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections Between African Americans and Asian Americans, edited by Bill Mullen and Fred Ho (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008).
Research support for Jen Liu, Electropore was provided by Jackson Bisaccia, Summer 2021 Curatorial Research Intern. To learn more about this work, click here to read Bisaccia’s essay “Jen Liu’s Electropore: Electrifying and Encoding Biomaterial to Build Coalitionary Force.”
Thank you to Ann T. Greene for facilitating access to materials from the Fred Ho Estate.
Images and videos:
1) Jen Liu, Pink Slime Caesar Shift: Electropore, 2021. HD, color, sound, 11:01 minutes.
2) Excerpts from Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors at The Kitchen, November 28–December 2, 2000. Video courtesy of the Fred Ho Estate.
Music and concept by Fred Ho; Book/Libretto by Ann T. Greene; Directed and Choreographed by Mira Kingsley; Scenic Design by Neil Prince; Costume Design by Cristina María Ruales; Lighting Design by David Allen; Martial Arts Choreography by George Crayton III; Production Stage Management by Fraser Coffeen; Sound Effects by David Wright; Assistant Costume Design by Anneke Teter; Produced by Big Red Media, Inc.; Production Management by Cindy Chalker; Back Stage Crew: Matt Whelan.
Cast: Hai-Ting Chinn, Allison Easter, Miki Yamashita, Jacqueline Patricia Howell, D.J. Lopez, Dell Fionn Sykes, Celeste Wortes, Emily Chang, Akkio Hiroshima, Kenneth Williams, Lynn Randolph, Christian Roland Burks, Aidan Connolly, Walt Fraser, George Crayton III, Kathleen Cruz, Mindy Haywood, Nai-yu Kuo, R. Scott Parker, Francie Johnson.
3) Left: Press release for Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors at The Kitchen, November 28–December 2, 2000. Detail. To see the full press release, click here. Right: Program for Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors at The Kitchen, November 28–December 2, 2000. Detail. To see the full program, click here.
4) Left: Letter from Ann T. Greene to Fred Ho, November 5, 1993. Courtesy of the Fred Ho Estate. Right: Letter from Fred Ho to Ann T. Greene, September 6, 1994. Courtesy of the Fred Ho Estate.
5) Left and right: Rehearsal for Warrior Sisters, BAM Attic Studio, October 13, 1994. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of the Fred Ho Estate.
6–7) Left and right: Score for Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors, Act 3, Scene 1, “She Who Runs When the Sun is Sleeping Will Stumble Many Times.” Fred Ho Papers, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library.
8–10) Left and right: Synopsis, Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors. Excerpts. Fred Ho Papers, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library.
11) Left: Floor plan sketch for Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors at The Kitchen, 2000. Fred Ho Papers, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library. Right: Floor plan schematic for Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors at The Kitchen, 2000. Fred Ho Papers, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library.
12) Left and right: Costume maintenance plan for Fred Ho and Ann T. Greene, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors at The Kitchen, 2000. Fred Ho Papers, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library.
13) John Pareles, “Agitprop Lives, Mythic in Spirit, Swinging in Style,”The New York Times, December 2, 2000.
14) Jen Liu, animated GIF of reference images for Pink Slime Caesar Shift: Electropore, 2021.