"Tigress - Lunar Offerings" Pop-Up Art Exhibition / AAPI Celebration, February 5 at Seafoam.

"Tigress - Lunar Offerings," a Pop-Up Art Exhibition / AAPI Celebration, will be held on February 5.

*** Please note this is a masked and vaxxed event ***

A pop-up art exhibition and AAPI community celebration!

Featuring visual art, performances, a live DJ, an interactive cookie table and a community altar where folks are invited to bring items to release and receive.

Cookie table hosted by Jasmine Cho of Yummyholic. Quantity is limited and first come, first served. People are invited to meditate on what kind of sweetness they want to amplify into their lives while decorating their own cookies honoring the Year of the Tiger. Free but donations to OCA Pittsburgh will be encouraged and collected.

Performances, a community moon song, and an open mic for the AAPI community will begin at 7pm.

Featured artists include:

- April Brust
- Anne Chen
- Bonnie Fan
- Caroline Yoo
- Hannah Colen
- Jasmine Cho
- Karen Lue
- Lauren Nakamura
- Lena Chen
- Lexie D
- Sara Tang
- Stephanie Tsong

..and more

It runs from 5:00 to 10:00 pm at SEAFOAM in Brighton Heights (map).

Asian American Heritage Month Celebration with Jasmine Cho and Allegheny County Bar Association, May 26.

The Allegheny County Bar Association will host Jasmine Cho for an online Asian American Heritage Month Celebration on May 26.

All members are invited to join the ACBA Asian Attorneys Committee to celebrate Asian American Heritage month with special guest Jasmine Cho, a Pittsburgh-based artist, author and “cookie activist”. She is most known for using portrait cookies to elevate representation for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. She is also a Food Network Champion (“Christmas Cookie Challenge” Season 3, Episode 8) and the Founder of Yummyholic. During this networking session, Cho will discuss and demonstrate her work. There is no cost to attend, but registration is required here.

The event starts at 5:30 pm and registration is required.

2019 documentary Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly (online) at Row House Cinema, from July 10.

via @YoursTrulyDoc.

The 2019 documentary Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly will play online via Row House Online from July 10. A synopsis from the official site:

Following Ai Weiwei’s detention at the hands of the Chinese authorities, the outspoken artist and activist transformed the former island penitentiary of Alcatraz into an artistic platform. The resulting exhibition engaged nearly 900,000 visitors in a conversation about the plight of prisoners of conscience around the world..

Ticket information will be coming soon. The single-screen Row House Cinema is located at 4115 Butler Street in Lawrenceville (map), though it has been screening movies exclusively online during the pandemic.

Erie APAA Online Discussion Panel on PBS's Asian Americans, June 11.

The Erie Asian Pacific American Association will hos an online discussion panel on PBS's Asian Americans on June 11.

Join us for the online screening of an epic new film from PBS that examines Asian Americans’ contributions to our country’s past, present, and future, followed by live discussion with a diverse panel from Erie’s Asian community on Thursday, June 11th at 6:30 pm. "Asian Americans" is presented in partnership with WQLN Public Media, and Erie Arts & Culture. The full documentary is available for viewing online now and it has also aired on WQLN. During the panel discussion, we will screen excerpts from the documentary to frame specific conversations. Our distinguished panel includes Dr. Shafiqur Rehman (moderator), Dr. Anjali Sahay, Brittany Fisher, Dr. Jingze Jiang, Nandu Subedi, Harjinder Sabherwal, Walter Ang, and Niken Astari Carpenter.

The free event starts at 6:30 pm. Registration is required and can be completed online.

Erie Asian Pacific American Association presents Multicultural Asia Day 2019, November 16.

The Erie Asian Pacific American Association presents Multicultural Asia Day 2019 on November 16 at the expERIEnce Children's Museum.

Erie Asian Festival 2019, May 4.

The Erie Asian Pacific American Association is presenting its annual Asian Festival on May 4.

Japanese drumming group Taikoza performing at Pitt-Titusville, Penn State Behrend, November 13 and 14.

Two regional campuses of Pitt and Penn State will host the Japanese drumming and performance group Taikoza on November 13 and 14.

Come discover the wonderful world that Taikoza creates through sounds and sights. Experience the thunderous sounds like never before. Taikoza is a unique Taiko group that features taiko drums, shakuhachi and fue in a mind-blowing performances. Taikoza will make you rediscover Taiko and bring you a raw energy that will energize your senses.

Multicultural Asia Day, November 10 in Erie.

The Erie Asian Pacific American Association (Erie APAA) will present the 11th annual Multicultural Asia Day on November 10.

Join Erie APAA and GE Transportation APAF at the expERIEnce Children's Museum to learn more about the various Asian cultures! The event will include hands-on activities, cultural performances, and displays. Participating countries are Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Pakistan and Turkey.

It will run from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm at the expERIEnce Children's Museum at 420 French St. (map).

2016 Park Chan-wook film The Handmaiden (아가씨) at Erie Art Museum, March 8.

The 2016 Korean movie The Handmaiden (아가씨), directed by Park Chan-wook, will play at the Erie Art Museum (map) on March 8. An October four-star review on RogerEbert.com provides a summary:

Park Chan-Wook’s “The Handmaiden” is a love story, revenge thriller and puzzle film set in Japanese-occupied Korea in the 1930s. It is voluptuously beautiful, frankly sexual, occasionally perverse and horrifically violent. At times its very existence feels inexplicable. And yet all of its disparate pieces are assembled with such care, and the characters written and acted with such psychological acuity, that you rarely feel as if the writer-director is rubbing the audience’s nose in excess of one kind or another. This is a film made by an artist at the peak of his powers: Park, a South Korean director who started out as a critic, has many great or near-great genre films, including “Oldboy,” “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” “Lady Vengeance” and “Thirst,” but this one is so intricate yet light-footed that it feels like the summation of his career to date.

Doors open at 6:00 pm and the movie starts at 7:00. Tickets are $5.

CineFestAsia in Erie, May 9 and 10.

The Erie Asian Pacific American Association and the Film Society of North Western Pennsylvania will present CineFestAsia on May 9 and 10 at the Erie Art Museum (map). Friday's opening reception is free and is followed by the world premiere of the Korean documentary Entering the Second Half (잘 살거야) and a discussion with the filmmaker, Heyjin Jun. The Korean title translates to "I Will Live Well" and is

a short documentary on victims of leprosy who have been exiled from society for decades but came to dream of their new lives and talked about hope for the future at their ages of 70s since they learned reading, writing, singing, computer and performing on the stage for the first time of their lives. They are scared but try to step forward towards the society which once abandoned them.

(The name of the South Korean island is Sorok-do, and a Google search will lead to more on the topic.)

Singapore's Ilo Ilo will also run on the 9th, while Transit, The Lady, and Bhaag Milka Bhaag will play on the 10th. Tickets are $5 each. Times and trailers are available by visiting the Erie APAA website and clicking CineFestAsia.

Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster (一代宗師) at Erie Art Museum, March 5.

Wong Kar Wai's latest film The Grandmaster (一代宗師), which opened throughout the US in August 2013, will play at the Erie Art Museum (map) on March 5. Starring Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi, the New York Times wrote last year it's

a hypnotically beautiful dream from the Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, opens with curls of smoke, eddies of water and men soaring and flying across the frame as effortlessly as silk ribbons. The men are warriors, street fighters with furious fists and winged feet, who have massed together on a dark, rainy night to take on Ip Man (Tony Leung), a still figure in a long coat and an elegant white hat. Even amid the violent whirlpools of rain and bodies, that hat never leaves his head. It’s as unyielding as its owner.

The movie starts at 7:00. Tickets are $5 at the door, or $6.17 online.

Blurriecon, an "anime, gaming, new media, and Japanese culture con" in Erie, September 20 - 22.

The Erie Anime Experience shares information about Blurriecon,

an anime, gaming, new media, and Japanese culture con taking place in Erie, Pennsylvania on September 20, 21, and 22, 2013. The location is the Reed Student Union of Behrend College, 4701 College Drive, Erie, Pennsylvania, 16563. Events include live music by the Waddledees, video gaming of all eras, an anime dance party, cosplay masquerade, geekpop karaoke, drawing, crafting, fan-run panels and more! Our focus is on creativity and participation. Passes are available at the door...$10 per day ($5 with Behrend student ID), $20 all weekend ($10 with Behrend ID).

Cloud Atlas at Erie Art Museum, July 10.

The 2012 film Cloud Atlas will play at the Erie Art Museum (map) on July 10. A German film, it features a number of household names in its ensemble cast and is the English-language debut of Korean actress Bae Doona. It also includes a year 2144 Seoul as one of its many settings.



The movie starts at 7:00 pm, and tickets are available online and at the door.

Japanese film I Wish in Erie, May 10.

The Japanese film I Wish (奇跡) is part of 2013's Maria J. Langer Film Series at Mercyhurst University, and will be playing on May 10th. There are two showtimes---2:15 and 7:15 pm---and it's playing at the Taylor Little Theater on 38th street, on the northern edge of campus (map). The movie's played in Pittsburgh a few times in recent memory; the Pittsburgh Filmmakers' site summarized on one of those occasions:

The adventure begins with 12-year-old Koichi, whose parents are divorced, and who desperately wants to reunite his family. We see his sullen gaze on the active volcano that touches everything in his new town where he lives with his mother. His younger brother lives with his father. When he learns that a new bullet train line will open, linking the two towns, he starts to believe that a miracle will take place the moment the trains first pass each other at top speed. Features wonderful, natural performances from the kids.

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry at Mercyhurst University, March 22.

The documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry will run on March 22 as part of Mercyhurst University's Maria J. Langer Film Series. The documentary's official website describes the film and subject:

Ai Weiwei is China's most famous international artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. Against a backdrop of strict censorship and an unresponsive legal system, Ai expresses himself and organizes people through art and social media. In response, Chinese authorities have shut down his blog, beat him up, bulldozed his newly built studio, and held him in secret detention.

It's been in Pittsburgh a few times, and the City Paper wrote of it last year:

Weiwei enjoys fawning attention in the West, particularly for his pointed critiques of his homeland's government, while in Beijing, his celebrity and influence is constantly checked by the authorities.

Mercyhurst is in Erie, and the film will run at the Taylor Little Theater on the northern edge of campus on East 38th Street (map). There are two showtimes, 2:15 and 7:15, and this and the other films in the series are free and open to the public.

In the Mood for Love at Erie Art Museum, March 6.

Readers in and around Erie may want to see the iconic Hong Kong film In the Mood for Love on March 6 at the Erie Art Museum (map) as part of its weekly film series. The film starts at 7:00 and tickets can be purchased online for $5.