Artists Spotlight: Dmae Roberts
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Mei Mei, a Daughter's Song, 1989, Dmae Roberts with parents, Chu-Yin and Bobby Roberts;
photo courtesy the artist |
Dmae Roberts, playwright, actor, radio artist
Recipient RACC 2007 Project Grant and numerous past Project Grants
Dmae Roberts is a an award-winning independent radio artist and writer who has written and produced more than 400 audio art pieces and documentaries for NPR and PRI programs. In December 2006, she was one of the first artists nationwide to win a $50,000 USA Fellowship from United States Artists, to support her creative work.
Her work is often autobiographical or about cross-cultural peoples and is informed by her biracial identity and her experiences growing up in the only interracial family in a small town in rural Oregon. Her Peabody award-winning documentary Mei Mei, a Daughter’s Song (see above), is a harrowing account of her mother’s childhood in Taiwan during WWII. Roberts has most recently completed the eight-hour Crossing East, the first radio series on Asian American history which aired on more than 210 public radio stations around the country.
In April, Crossing East won the coveted 2006 George Foster Peabody Award. Dmae, with associates Catherine Stifter and Ping Khaw (Dmae center in photo at right), accepted the Award in New York City in June, 2007. Here is an excerpt from her acceptance speech:
"While producing Crossing East, it became clear that America has had a love/hate relationship with immigrants of color. Asians on the west coast were detained for up to two years and interrogated daily while European immigrants were allowed to freely come. The American West is lined with the unmarked graves of Asian laborers who built the Transcontinental railroad. Yet most Asians were not allowed to bring families legally until 1965.This award is not only a recognition of the need for Asian American programming in public radio but it also calls attention that most of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. And we need laws not to exclude but to embrace the human fact that we all share the same wants, the same needs, the same hopes and dreams. Thank you for this honor today…"
In November 2007 Dmae is the South Waterfront Artist-in-Residence. Dmae is the 3nd artist in a 13-month series of guest exhibitors who will be developing site-specific works in Portland’s newest urban neighborhood— South Waterfront. As part of the residency, entitled can I tell you something, Dmae will be offering a series of writing salons on T/Th evenings and Saturday mornings. With the goal of unearthing stories, images, dreams and secrets, the salons are open to SWF residents, as well the general public. Dmae will work with Visual Artist Ping Khaw to create a final portrait with sound and imagery that will be presented on November 28, 2007 in the AiR Storefront Studio, SW River Parkway at Gaines in the John Ross.
Also planned for 2007, Dmae will write/perform/produce a 15-minute radio exploration called Passing: A Personal Story (awarded a RACC Project Grant) dealing with the concept of “passing” for another race. Growing up in rural Oregon there were no words for her identity. She will explore the evolution from “half-breed” to Eurasian, to Amerasian, Hapa and now Mixed Race.
She is the executive producer of MediaRites, a nonprofit organization dedicated to multicultural arts production in radio, theater, and educational outreach located in Portland, Oregon.
Contact Information:
website: http://www.mediarites.org/
To buy a CD of Crossing East, click here.
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RACC Staff to Contact
Mary Bauer
Communications Associate
503.823.5426
mbauer@racc.org
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