A reading of Dictee co-curated by Sarah Gambito and Zhang Er at Bowery Poetry Club in 2011. Anne Waldman described Dictee as a living text that continues to reverberate and it feels particular so in these times of war and humanitarian crisis in the Ukraine.
Original announcement: On the weekend of what would have been Cha’s 60th birthday (a full life cycle event in the Chinese/Korean lunar calendar), Belladonna* and Kundiman gather nine poets to perform a staged reading from Dictee. Cha’s best known written work, Dictee focuses on the life of several women framed with the art of the Greek muses, yet in the cosmos of Shamanism and Daoism. Their struggle to speak and overcome suffering is enacted through a mixture of media which destabilizes the notion of a progressive and seamless history.
Muses
Clio -Alison Roh Park
Calliope- Zhang Er
Urania – Geneveive White
Melpomene – Cathy Park Hong
Erato – Sarah Gambito & Kelly Tsai
Elitere – Anne Waldman
Thalia – Cara Benson
Terpsichore – Tamiko Beyer
Polymnia – Myung Mi Kim
It was really a magical day. At one point while we were setting up a gush of wind flowed through the space and you got this sense that Cha had arrived early for the event.
