Dan Kwong

Dan Kwong is an award-winning multimedia performance artist, playwright, director, and videomaker — hailed by critics as a master storyteller — who has presented his solo autobiographical work nationally and internationally since 1989. Born and raised in Los Angeles of Chinese and Japanese heritage, Kwong debuted with Secrets of the Samurai Centerfielder (1989) at the newly opened Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, becoming part of the first wave of performers nurtured there and serving on its board from 1990 to 2007. His performances intertwine multimedia, dynamic physical movement, martial arts, and personal narrative to explore identity, family, and the Asian American experience — moving through oppression, as he puts it, to reconnect with humanity. In 1991 he founded Treasure In The House, LA's first Asian Pacific American performance and visual art festival, curating it until 2003 and helping launch succeeding generations of Asian American solo performers. A founding artist of the 18th Street Arts Center and its longtime resident mentor artist, Kwong serves as Associate Artistic Director of Great Leap, the multicultural performing arts organization founded by Nobuko Miyamoto. His work is chronicled in the book From Inner Worlds to Outer Space (University of Michigan Press) and recognized in A History of Asian American Theatre.