Reorient the orient (2024)

Part performance event, durational installation, and social agitation, Reorient the Orient is choreographer and performer Lionel Popkin’s response to the dubious history of interculturalism. Seeking to expand the discourse on how brown South Asian bodies inhabit contemporary art and performance spaces, Popkin draws from his nearly 30-year archive of dance-making. Throughout the performance spaces (including lobbies, galleries, and other locations), dancers, videos, archival materials, rugs, sculptures, neon yellow wiffle balls, and the headpiece from an elephant costume invite audiences to make their way, choosing where to be and what to see.

Reorient the Orient premiered in March 2024 at REDCAT in Los Angeles, CA as an eight hour event with four performers.

Excerpts from 2024 showing at REDCAT in Los Angeles.

With Reorient the Orient, I am not interested in perpetuating imagery that promotes an orientalist fantasy, homeland nostalgia, assimilationist whitewashing, the invisibilizing of Asian contributions, or contributes to the mirage of authenticity. Instead, I am investigating imagery that focuses on the trust, support, and risk necessary to survive the complex experiences of brown bodies within the American art world. 

-Lionel Popkin, 2024

Creative Team:

Created by Lionel Popkin

Performed by Jay Carlon, Lionel Popkin, Arushi Singh, and Willy Souly

Original Sound by Tom Lopez

Video Design by Meena Murugesan

Costume Design and Visual Consultation by Marcus Kuiland Nazario

Lighting Design by Christopher Kuhl

Art and Archive Consultation by Cori Olinghouse

Map Design by Jesse Bonnell, Foghorn & Co

Photo credits by Nicola Goode and Angel Origgi

Reorient the Orient is the recipient of a National Performance Network (NPN) commission with REDCAT in Los Angeles as the lead commissioner and Dance Place in DC as a co-commissioner. Additional funds come from the UCLA Council on Research, The UCLA Chancellor's Arts Initiative, the National Performance Network's Storytelling and Documentation Fund, and the Mellon Foundation.