Theatre

SULU DC

Homegrown & Homeschooled: An Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Celebration

SAT MAY 19 / 7 PM
$15 general / $12 students
Dome Theatre

There's no better way to celebrate APA Heritage Month than to support the artist we have right here at home. Join the Sulu DC family for a heritage month showcase of local emerging AAPI artists! Curated and hosted by co-founder and spoken word pioneer Regie Cabico, this showcase of local Asian American and Pacific Islander artists includes performances by instrumental band Yeveto, poet Tarfia Faizullah, actor and singer Don Mike Mendoza and poet Suty Komsonkeo.

About the Performers:

Tarfia Faizullah‘s poems have appeared in Ninth Letter, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. A Kundiman fellow and a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s program in creative writing, she is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a Ploughshares Cohen Award, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Margaret Bridgman Scholarship, a Kenyon Review Writers Workshop Peter Taylor fellowship, and other honors.

Suty Komsonkeo is a Freshman at The George Washington University studying Environmental Engineering. He has competed in the 2011 Brave New voices competition with the Lowell Youth Slam Team and performs frequently around the George Washington University Campus.  Suty also practices with the GW Raas Team, an Indian-style dance team which recently won the national championship, organizes events as the Co-cultural Affairs Coordinator for the Philippine Cultural Society, and works at the campus’ LGBT Resource Center. Through his writing (which ranges from dark tones to lighthearted humor), he explores self-identification, such as culture and sexual orientation.

Although born in Washington, DC, Don Mike Mendoza grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and returned to DC in 2006 to study musical theatre and broadcast journalism at American University. Since graduating in 2010, by day he is a manager at Vida Fitness and a Theatre volunteer for BloomBars, and by night, you can find him acting, singing, dancing, and producing all around the DC/MD/VA region… and now for La-Ti-Do at the Black Fox Lounge! Mendoza has been featured in local newspapers such as The Washington Bladeand Manila Mail for his accomplishments as an Asian American actor. Don Mike Mendoza co-founded La-Ti-Do with Regie Cabico (host, curator and co-founder of Sulu DC). La-Ti-Do is a weekly spoken word/musical theatre cabaret series at Black Fox Lounge in Dupont Circle.

Yeveto is an instrumental band featuring guitar, organ, cello, and drums who compose experimental rock music.  They have shared the stage with other Baltimore acts like Monarchs (Wye Oak), Arboretum, Dustin Wong, Nate Bell, and Beach House as well as national acts like Kayo Dot, Stinking Lizaveta, and Les Rhinoceros. Their new album Remote Unelectrified Villages was released in November 2011.