● This piece was choreographed by Lenora Lee, her background

incorporates mediums of dance, music, film, and various forms of

media in order to reopen the conversation with a focus on topics
such as immigration, human rights issues, and global issues with
an emphasis on how they impact women and families.

Historical Context:
- Angel Island: “The Ellis Island of the West”
- Main immigration facility on the West coast of the United
States from 1910-1940
- One of the key differences between them was that Angel
island saw more Asian immigrants compared to the
predominantly European immigrants coming in on the
East side of the country, with an estimate of 170,000
Chinese immigrants who were detained, questioned,
and sought out “landing”.
- Angel Island was up and running throughout the Chinese
Exclusion Act (1882)
- While the processing window for most in the station
lasted for typically 2-3 days, Asian immigrants were
subject to long interrogations, thorough “medical”
exams, as well as weeks, months, or even years of
detainment
- The manner in which the immigrants were held was
later compared to a neighboring island, Alcatraz
- A fire took place in 1940, burning down the main building,
however, the rest of the facility was turned into a detention
center for Japanese immigrants during WWII
- After the war, the facility was abandoned until 1963 when the
California Department of Parks and Recreation took over the
island
- Though at first it faced demolition due to its
deterioration, there they found more than 200 poems
etched into the walls in Chinese, and now its
 preservation serves as a medium of awareness and
advocacy in the history of the immigration process.
Video Contexts:
Option 1: This video was made with a camcorder that shot one of the
public performances of “Within These Walls”. This style of art piece,
reminded me a lot of a choose your own adventure style of media, in
which its spectators had the liberty and free will to follow the artists as
they chose and could roam the space both indoors and outdoors to follow
different parts of the action. In its duration, we capture snippets in time
of what the immigration experience was like, and the audience gets to
experience first hand, the immense hardships and brutality that was
lived through, within the medium of dance and reenactment, in the very
same environment where these events took place.

Option 2: This was shot at one of the rehearsals, as we can tell by the
dancers warming up at the beginning, receiving notes from the director,
and filling in for other dancers. Seeing this rendition after watching the
finalized performance, it had that feeling that something was missing.
There was a more prominent, eerie presence caused by taking the
audience out of the equation. We are also following Hien’s perspective
this time, providing a different side to the same story.

Possible Questions:

● What is the impact of having this site-specific performance being

an immersive experience in which the audience is free to roam
room to room, experiencing different perspectives, while
simultaneously receiving interaction from the artists at some
points? How might this invite audiences to reflect on their own
relationship to these ghosts?
- On that same note, what is the impact of the version with no
audience? How does this change the meaning of the piece for
you?
● In what ways do the performers capture the existing cultural and
emotional ghosts of those who passed through Angel Island and
how is this expressed through movement and symbolism?
○ Cultural and emotional ghosts

● There are many projections used throughout the experience, one of

these being writing which is meant to resemble the poetry etched
into the walls. How did these projections and the use of multimedia
influence your interpretation of the piece ?
○ Projections and poetry

● Most of the dialogue from the performance (being little to begin

with) is done through audio recordings. Why do you think they
made that choice? At the point where the officers are announcing
who was approved or denied, they use their own voices, why?
○ Dialogue and audio

● How would you compare the use of movement and symbolism in

this piece as compared to a previous dance piece we watched,
“Ghostcatching” in terms of capturing the essence of the existing
ghosts?
○ Movement and Ghostcatching

● The title of this piece is “Within these Walls”. Within this piece,
there is an emphasis placed right at the top of the show by the
inspectors, when they say not to touch the walls under any
 circumstances. Walls can symbolize a sense of confinement or
maybe even protection. How do these performers portray these
walls through their art and what feelings do they elicit by doing so?
○ Walls and Symbolism

● Similar to many pieces we have read about during this course,

displacement is a prominent theme within this piece. In what ways
are feelings of displacement and loss of cultural identity conveyed
throughout this performance?
○ Displacement and Identity

● How did the meaning/interpretation of the piece change depending

upon the order in which you watched them videos?