The EVOKE Festival nurtures artists and new performance works that expand the dialogue about the Asian Pacific American experiences. The 2013 EWP EVOKE Festival presents the vivid reality and imaginations of South Asian American artists. EVOKE audience members will have unique opportunities to explore the work and engage in post-show discussions. Featuring the work of: Shilpa Agarwal and Sheetal Ghandi with Jas Ahluhwalia & Kamaljeet Ahluwalia, Snehal Desai, Cynthia Ling Lee ad Shyamala Moorty, Puja Mohindra, Ami Patel, and SaiQa (Saba Waheed).

All performances will have a post-show discussion with the artists. The Sunday show will be preceded by a brunch and pre-show panel discussion in the East West Players courtyard, starting at 12 noon. Community organizations will have information tables and food trucks will have savory snacks available for purchase.

Community partners include South Asians for Justice and South Asian Network. Media partner includes Buzzine.

Performance Run:
Thursday, March 14 - Saturday, March 16 at 8pm
Sunday, March 17 at 2pm

Running Time: 90 minutes

General Admission: $10 

Alison M. De La Cruz (DIRECTOR) is a multi-disciplinary theatre artist, producer, arts educator and cultural organizer. De La Cruz's original performance work has been presented at venues across the country including the Kirk Douglas Theatre, the Northwest Asian American Theatre and the Asian Arts Initiative. Her solo shows include SUNGKA (1999), Tales from Hip (2004), NATURALLY GRACEFUL (2005), and her new work in progress L.A MALONG MALONG (2011). She is an Alumna of the David Henry Hwang Writers' Institute and was part of the final cohort of Asian American theatre artists to work with Chay Yew at The Mark Taper Forum's Asian Theatre Workshop.  

Over the last 14 years, De La Cruz has not only been a writer and performer, but has worked in a variety of capacities to nurture new voices within queer, immigrant, student and multicultural communities of Los Angeles. De La Cruz is the writer, narrator and Associate Producer of the feature length documentary Grassroots Rising: Asian American Working Families in Los Angeles. She served as a Director and Dramaturge, TEADA WORKS (TeAda Productions); she also portrayed Ofa in the world premiere of RUBY, TRAGICALLY ROTUND and served as Assistant Director, CALLIGRAPHY (Playwrights' Arena). As a dramaturge and director, De La Cruz has had the pleasure of working with D’Lo, Raja Bhattar, Alicia Virani, Jun-Fung Chueh-Meija, Nguyen Ngyuen, Leilani Chan, Nico Dacumos, and the Butchlalis de Panochitlan in their new work development processes. De La Cruz has also collaborated and toured as part of the queer artist of color SPOTLIGHT STEALERZ with Adelina Anthony and D'Lo.

De La Cruz has served as Lead Teaching Artist within several residency programs for Cal Poly Pomona’s Asian Pacific Islander Student Center & Pride Center, East West Players, About Productions, FilAm Arts, the HeArt Project and APIRH's H.O.P.E. Project. Additionally, De La Cruz was part of L.A-based Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles' Leadership and Replication Team that working with professional theater artists and youth participants in Richmond, VA on WILL POWER TO YOUTH. In addition, De La Cruz has also directed several staged readings including: Serena Lin's A TRADITIONAL GIRL; Rebecca Baroma's THE FLOWER AND THE FIREFLY and Udaya Kanthi Salguda's LETTERS FOR MY MOTHER.

De La Cruz is also a member of the Network of Ensemble Theaters and has recently facilitated colleagues in dialogue about new work development, and the explorations of how race, culture and place impact making-art in an ensemble context. She is a Resident Artist with Tuesday Night Projects and one of 20 local playwrights part of FLASH THEATER L.A.. Her gender-bending noir murder mystery play SMOKE & MIRRORS, directed by Fran DeLeon premiered in February 2012, bringing new narrative and production heights to this new theatrical model. De La Cruz is a recipientof the Duane Ebata Award from the Japanese American Community and Cultural Center and a Theatre Communications Group Young Leader of Color.

She is the author of Haunting Bombay (Soho Press, 2009), a winner of the First Words Literary Prize for South Asian Writers and a San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller. Shilpa earned her B.A. from Duke University, specializing in African, Asian, and Middle Eastern literatures, and Women's Studies. She was awarded a Euguene Cota-Robles Fellowship at UCLA where she earned her M.A. and C.Phil. in Comparative Literature, including American, Asian-American, English, French, South Asian, and Postcolonial literatures. She has taught literature and social activism at UCLA and UCSB, including a class on the South Asian Diaspora within the Asian American Studies Department.

Shilpa is a founder of the South Asian Artists' Collective, a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization dedicated to the progressive exploration of South Asian arts in America, and a founder of ArtWallah, renowned internationally and produced annually for a decade in collaboration with venerable artistic venues across the city of Los Angeles. Shilpa was a mentor for the PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellowship, and served as a literary judge for India Currents Magazine and Khabar Magazine.Shilpa's writing is informed by glimpses into moments of alienation and awakening, especially during geographic and metaphoric crossings: east and west meet, the living stumble upon the dead, the heavens and earth clash, the powerful and the powerless collide. Shilpa writes to call up the haunting utterances of the excluded, to excavate fragmentary memories that edge consciousness, and to imagine a more nuanced narrative of history itself. She is currently completing her second novel, At Her Divine Breast.

In addition to being a passionate musician, Kamaljeet is an accomplished painter and has had many group and solo exhibitions around the globe. Her paintings deal with the emotional content of Indian classical music. Indian classical music has many factors, rules, and themes to consider: Rasa (emotional content), Raga (main melodic characteristics) and Rhythm. To bring these intangible themes to view she uses vast sweeps of colour on canvas and board, and carefully chooses and researches colours to preserve the essence of the music. Currently, a specially commissioned body of work is touring the USA as part of Himalaya Song - a multi artform production, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

As an actor and writer, Snehal has toured his solo show, Finding Ways to Prove You're Not an Al-Qaeda Terrorist When You're Brown to sold out audiences across the United States including performances at the Yale Cabaret, Theater Rhinoceros, and the HERE Arts Center in New York. He is also the author of Sita/Sat and Lost Boy. His plays have been developed or produced by Desipina, Terra Nova Collective, PS122, Pan Asian Rep, the Lark, HERE Arts Center, and Old Vic New Voices in London.

Sheetal Gandhi is a Los Angeles-based director/choreographer/performer. Her work has been described as "eloquent, inventive, virtuosic dance-theater" by the Philadelphia Inquirer utilizing "incisive commentary offset by brilliant touches of humor" (Narthaki). Inspired to explore the complexities of human existence, she creates characters of profound depth, integrity and humanity. Sheetal uses a hybrid movement vocabulary influenced by Kathak, Modern and West African dance, as well as complex rhythmic structures, vocal percussion and singing, to craft a virtuosic and evocative physical/vocal vocabulary. Sheetal's career has spanned genres and disciplines including her work as a creator and performer in Cirque du Soleil's Dralion, playing a leading role in the Broadway production of Bombay Dreams, dancing throughout Ghana with the traditional West African dance company Novisi, and singing with the New York based, all-female a cappella group, Anamcara. In 1995, Sheetal's love for rhythm and culture took her back to her roots in India for an extended time to study the North Indian classical dance form, Kathak. In exploring traditional forms of dance and music through decidedly postmodern compositional structures- all to comment on the social world in which we live- Sheetal's work references the past, grounds itself in the present, but comments on the possibilities of the future. In both form and content, Sheetal's work reflects her love for tradition (both cultural and disciplinary) with the equally urgent desire to break from it.

Sheetal is a recipient of a 2012-13 NDP Touring Award for her acclaimed solo dance- theater work, Bahu-Beti-Biwi and the work is currently touring nationally and internationally. Her passion for intercultural exchange continues to lead her to collaborate with artists and communities both locally and abroad, embracing opportunities to expand the limits of imagination, creativity and human compassion. Visit her at www.sheetalgandhi.com or stay in touch with her activities on Facebook!

Cynthia Ling Lee instigates thoughtful, friction-filled dialogues between American postmodern dance and North Indian classical kathak. Dedicated to intimate collaborative processes, she creates intercultural, interdisciplinary work that has been presented throughout Asia and the United States at venues such as Dance Theater Workshop (New York), Asia Society (New York), National Asian-American Theater Festival (Los Angeles), Painted Bride Arts Center (Philadelphia), Kuandu Arts Festival (Taipei), and Chandra-Mandapa: Spaces (Chennai). Cynthia was the recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, an Asia-Pacific Performing Arts Exchange Fellowship, a Santa Monica Individual Artist Fellowship, and two ARC grants. Influential teachers and mentors include Simone Forti, Eiko & Koma, Judy Mitoma, Pallabi Chakravorty, Bandana Sen, Kumudini Lakhia, Anjani Ambegaokar, and the contact improvisation community. Cynthia holds an MFA in choreography from UCLA.

She returns to her stage roots this year when she brings her one-woman show, Good Indian Girl to Los Angeles and New York. Other favorite theater credits include: Tara in A Widow of Now Importance at East West Players, Belle in the American Conservatory Theater's & South Coast Rep's production of A Christmas Carol, the title role in Jean Anouilh's Antigone, & Mary Warren in The Crucible. TV Credits include: "Undercovers," "CSI: Miami ," "Three Rivers," "Miami Medical," "Ghost Whisperer," "All My Children," "Valentine," and the HBO pilot, "1%." She is a former dance company member of Natya Dance Theatre in Chicago and has toured across the U.S. and India performing the classical Indian dance, Bharata Natyam. When she's not on set or stage, she has a passion for being in the audience.

Shyamala Moorty is a choreographer, interdisciplinary performance artist, and facilitator who is dedicated to healing, connecting, and transforming individuals and communities. A founding member of the Post Natyam Collective, she has toured in their collaborative shows in Europe, India, and the U.S. She also is a company artist with TeAda Productions where she has created two seminal solo shows: "RISE" featured in the book Desi Divas: Political Activism in South Asian American Cultural Performances by Chris Garlough (2013), and "Carrie's Web" featured in the book Contemporary Indian Dance by Ketu Katrak (2011). Shyamala holds an MFA in choreography from UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures, teaches at several community colleges, and facilitates healing through the arts workshops in the community. Shyamala has received two ARC grants from the Durfee Foundation and the Center for Cultural Innovation and two Professional Artist Fellowships from the Long Beach Arts Council.

Ami Patel is a queer South Asian American woman currently based in Los Angeles. She is first and foremost a poet, and is committed to using her words to tell stories in multidisciplinary art forms. She is a two time VONA fellow and a Visual Communications Armed With A Camera Fellow. Her short film Still Life With premiered at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, and she has performed twice at Tuesday Night Cafe. Currently, she is a Masters student in the Asian American Studies Program at UCLA.