I've been rather remiss about updating this website. Last year, I moved to London and then Almost Home: Taiwan was accepted to the Visions du Réel Festival. This coincided with an invitation from North American Taiwanese Women's Association (NATWA) to speak at their annual conference, which was taking place in San Diego. I was still depressed and felt like some sunshine would probably do me good. So a supportive London friend bought me tickets to go hopping from London --> NYC --> California --> Switzerland and back in the space of two weeks.

It started off fantastic: NATWA was, as usual, so incredibly affrmative. And I never knew the Alps were that beautiful. And Sheffield Doc Fest acepted the film to their Videotheque and a theatre company in London said they wanted to talk to me about a production in June. I got on the plane back to London excited about everything and feeling like things were finally looking up. But...the border patrol at Luton Airport decided to deny me entry to the UK. You can read all about it on my blog. I was rather devastated. After bopping around France for a month, not knowing what to do, I decided to come to Berlin. So here I am.

It took a little while to get back on my feet and I'm still not entirely there. I'm also still not entirely sure what I'm doing here. But I've been getting back on stage as Viva Lamore and I just recently helped two amazing musicians make a few music videos. This is the first one: Zaatari by Roland Satterwhite and Milo, who is a guitarist from Syria. It's already gotten more than 7,500 views on facebook! I did the video projections. Don't know why the first image is so blurry; the video itself is sharp. Check it out - it's a gorgeous song!

Well, London's not exactly calling, it's more like New York City is NOT calling. I've gotten a little sick of being a NYC rat and for the first time I'm wondering what it would be like to live and work elsewhere. Most everyone has the experience of moving away from the place where they were born but I've been in New York City almost my whole life.

So here I am, in East London, trying to figure out how to make a go of it. I was in London this past January to scope it out and also attend a course at the National Film & Television School. And it seemed like there might be a need for a creative producer in the British East Asian theatre community. So I thought perhaps I could organize a series of staged readings of Asian-American plays, or perhaps I could re-create Take Two in London. Take Two, Part 2? 

If you're curious about my adventures, I've been uploading sort of an occasional London photo diary on my personal blog. 

And in other news, I just went on a wee promotional tour of ALMOST HOME: TAIWAN, taking along a resistance art project called Art for a Free Taiwan.  

Oh, and I started working on a web series about NYC in which I take a walk around the block with someone who's lived on that block for over 10 years. I just put something up about it on this website here. It's a valentine the New York I love, but it also seems a bit like a farewell. I guess we shall see. 

Yes, I tend to keep myself busy. And broke. 

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Not exactly London - this is Beaconsfield where I took a documentary shooting course back in January. 

Sorry if you've been watching this page with bated breath for an update (not...) I've been writing posts, but they've all been on Facebook and ALMOST HOME: TAIWAN. That's what I've mostly been working on since July. You can find out what I've been doing by clicking on News. Or to sum up, I just got back from screening a sneak preview of the fine cut in Boston, San Francisco and Seattle. Some pics here. Next up is a conference in South Carolina in July. Hope to have an even better cut of the film by then. More news on this soon! (Promise!) 

Besides working ALMOST HOME, I also was in London this past January, where I took a documentary shooting course at the National Film & Television School.  I  also went to the Berlinale to drum up some interest in the film. I've been thinking a lot about Europe. New York City seems so played out. 

And so does theater. Haven't really done much, except write a few proposals to get BIG FLOWER EATER or DISPOSSESSED going that have been rejected. But I did just go see HERE LIES LOVE at the Public and it's amazing. My review here. 

Well, it's over already, wow what an intense couple of weeks! We got a little bit of interest from the blogosphere. Check out these links:  

Nice review at New York Theatre Review by Hallie Sekoff -- "...a colorful, vibrant and poignant personal saga...moments of arresting beauty..."

Interview on EV Grieve -- comments are interesting too

Interview on www.nytheatre.com  

Off-Off Broadway World announcement

We also were in Town & Village, the newspaper of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village but I haven't managed to get my hands on a copy quite yet. 

So it's live and it's happening and you can get tickets HERE. 

DISPOSSESSED, July 19-21 at HERE Arts Center, 145 Sixth Ave, enter on Dominick, two blocks below Spring.

I'm doing an excerpt of DISPOSSESSED at the Gershwin Hotel on June 11th. It's an event hosted by Zero Boy. Will be fun! Click here for more info on facebook

I'm going to Boston this weekend to be part of two events, which happen to both be on Friday, May 24th.

First, in the afternoon, I'm part of a panel about James Purdy, a friend and mentor, whose plays I produced way back when I was 17-20 years old. I'm supposed to present 6-8 minutes and the thought fills me with a bit of trepidation since I'm not really any kind of scholar, just a know-it-all New Yorker with a lot of interests. Here's the information, if you happen to be a card-carrying member of the American Literature Association and/or you are a Boston book geek who wants to register and pay $75 to discuss various authors with other book geeks: 

American Literature Association - 24th Annual Conference

The Westin Copley Place

10 Huntington Avenue

Boston MA 02116-5798

Friday May 24, 2013

3:40 –5:00 pm

Session 12-H The Candles of His Eyes: Stories of James Purdy, A Roundtable (Courier 7th Floor)

Organized by the James Purdy Society

Then later that night, ​I will also be presenting a sneak preview of 25 minutes from the rough cut of ALMOST HOME: TAIWAN, including new footage that I shot this past summer. There's a facebook event page where you can sign up for this free event. Or just show up! Discussion sure to be interesting. 

ALMOST HOME: TAIWAN - Sneak Preview

MIT Media Lab

75 Amherst Street

Room E14-240

Cambridge, MA

7:30 - 9:30 pm

Organized by FAPA (YPG) - Boston

​I'm part of an art installation taking place this weekend. It's a reenactment of a 1979 trial in Italy. I'm basically the court stenographer. There's two of us; my shifts are 3:00 to 6:00 on Saturday and 12:00 to 3:00 on Sunday.

Rossella Biscotti, "The Trial" 2011. Keys taken from the high-security courthouse in Foro Italico, Rome.

Opening reception: Saturday, May 11, 6–8pm

Exhibition hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 12–6pm

e-flux
311 East Broadway
New York, NY 10002

T 212 619 3356

On April 7, 1979, a number of militants and intellectuals, formerly members of Potere Operaio (Workers Power) and Autonomia Operaia, were arrested across Italy on charges of terrorism. They were accused of being leaders of the armed organization the Red Brigades, and for the kidnap and execution of Aldo Moro. Evidence to support the prosecution was, and remains unfounded, yet the majority of the prosecuted were held in preventative prison from 1979 until the trial’s close in 1984. It is this 1982–84 trial that artist Rossella Biscotti takes as her point of departure for the performance and exhibition The Trial at e-flux.

The core of The Trial is a six-hour audio edit of the original courtroom recordings. Initiating the show on May 11 and 12 is a two-day simultaneous live translation of this sound piece from Italian to English. The act of translation is central to the exhibition, as both a transferral and an embodiment of the historical trial’s language within the present time.​

​Read more at http://www.e-flux.com/program/rossella-biscotti-the-trial/

I'll be presenting an excerpt of BIG FLOWER EATER and participating in a lecture about women and Asian-Americans in theater on Friday, May 10th. It's part of the Friday Night Lecture Series at CUNY's Asian-American/Asian Research Institute. ​

More info and RSVP for free tickets at http://aaari.info/13-05-10Linchong.htm 

​Home sweet home.

Just got word that my one-person play, DISPOSSESSED, has been accepted for the summer Sublet Series at Here Theater ​in July. We'll have the chance to workshop the play and then try it out over four performances, July 19-21.

Curious about it? Here's the riff:

After nearly 20 years, Victoria Linchong has been evicted from her home and she doesn't know what to do with all her books. Solution? DISPOSSESSED, a one-person play about her eviction, after which she will give each person in the audience a book from her ridiculously extensive library.

A bittersweet story of finding and losing home, DISPOSSESSED also investigates the history of apartments from Ancient Rome to now, landlord-tenant relationships since the Code of Hammurabi, and the human instinct for object attachment. An eclectic and whimsical mix of poetry, video, music, and sock puppets, with writing by Sir Peter Hall, Luc Sante and Jane Jacobs, DISPOSSESSED is the personal journey of a struggling artist, from the mean streets of the old Lower East Side to the meaner streets of the new New York.

Save the date! More info coming!