Place-based storytelling has been a central focus of A Year on Angel Island. On April 19, 2023, we presented a series of installations and performances at the Angel Island Immigration Station telling stories of migration, family separation, and cultural dislocation.
Over two semesters in Fall 2022 and Spring 2023, a team of faculty and students collaborated under the umbrella of a Townsend Working Group led by Prof. Lisa Wymore (Theater, Dance & Performance Studies) and Susan Moffat (Creative Director, Future Histories Lab) in order to create site-specific performances inside the Angel Island Immigration Station detention barracks that illuminate the history of the place. In the Spring semester we were joined by doctoral students in Assoc. Professor Roshanak Kheshti’s course, Theater 203: Performance Practicum–Bodies, Space and Time, who created movement and spoken word performances.
We presented a series of installations and experiences for attendees at the annual conference of the California Preservation Foundation in hopes of expanding the toolkit of interpretive methods used by public historians, historic preservation professionals, and museum and historic park curators.
Members of the audience said they found the experience “moving” and “inspiring.”
You can find photos and videos of the performances on the project website for A Day on Angel Island. More materials will be added over the summer of 2023 as we complete the editing process.