General Admission: $10 (General Museum Admission included)

MOCA Members: Free

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Museum of Chinese in America’s Performing-Artist-In-Residence program welcomes a cohort of 3 performing artists to generate a theme-based project. This year’s theme, Declaration of Independence, encourages the resident artists to interrogate what it means to be “American,” to see self-determination, or to stake a claim to visibility, freedom, and belonging.

During this program, the resident artists will present works-in-progress and share the creative vision behind their projects. Audience members will have the opportunity to engage in an in-depth conversation with the artists, offering feedback, asking questions, and gaining insight into the cultural contexts and personal motivations that shape each work.

Join us for an intimate evening of artistic exploration, dialogue, and discovery.

PRESENTER:

Fortune Cookie, burlesque performer/writer/producer

Fortune Cookie is a native New Yorker born in Chinatown. She is a burlesque performer, writer and producer of the quarterly show at Caveat called “Books and Burlesque.” She is inspired by female superheroes in Asian folklore and mythology, as well as global resistance movements and incorporates acrobatics and projections in her performances. For her residency she is interested in exploring the intersection between performing and writing as a “declaration of independence.”

PROJECT:

Reincarnating the Past through Storytelling and Burlesque

Inspired by traditional Chinese storytelling’s circular structure, where transformation unfolds through unexpected turns rather than direct conflict, Reincarnating the Past through Storytelling and Burlesque blends narrative and performance to bring the past into intimate dialogue with the present.

In this presentation, Fortune Cookie will share an excerpt from a short story inspired by two trailblazing Asian American women who defied the expectations of their time: nightclub and burlesque performer Jadin Wong (1913–2010) and suffragist and Chinatown community leader Mabel Lee (1896–1966). In a dreamlike journey, these figures visit the narrator and guide her through questions of memory, fate, and what it means to claim one’s own “declaration of independence” in a nation where ideals and lived realities often diverge.

As the narrator is repeatedly “reincarnated” as each woman, she discovers new ways to confront anti-Asian violence—physically, emotionally, and imaginatively—drawing strength from their histories of resistance.

Following the reading, the presentation culminates in a five-minute burlesque performance inspired by Wong’s signature “Moon Goddess” dance and Lee’s iconic appearance as a teenage leader riding on horseback in New York City’s 1912 suffrage parade. Blending storytelling, history, and embodied performance, the piece reanimates the legacies of these women while asking how their courage might guide us today.