The Slant Podcast

Connect with US David S. Leong is a certified conflict resolution trainer and fight master whose fight choreography has appeared in over twenty Broadway, London West End, and New York Metropolitan Opera plays. David shares how growing up in a home with domestic violence, a childhood obsession with Zorro, and the stubborn belief in his own growth lead him to where he is today. Find us on www.slantp...

Connect with US Phil Chan is a co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface, an organization that is decolonizing ballet repertoire through advising performing arts groups on how to maintain the integrity of works from the classical Western canon while updating outdated representations of race and culture.  Chan discusses navigating orientalism in classical ballet performances and outlines an essential...

Connect with US Gary Jackson is the author of two poetry collections entitled Origin Story (University of New Mexico Press, 2020) and Missing You, Metropolis (Graywolf Press, 2010), for which he received the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Gary discusses the unique experience of growing up in the midwest with Black, Korean, and Indigenous roots; moving to Korea—his grandmother's homeland—as an...

Connect with US A conversation with Susan Choi, the author of five novels, Trust Exercise , My Education , American Woman , A Person of Interest , and The Foreign Student . Her work has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award and has won the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award, the Asian-American Literary Award, and the National Book Award for fiction. Susan discusses navigating her mi...

Connect with US A conversation with Diep Tran, an arts journalist and editor based in New York City. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times , NBC News , Backstage , CNN , and other publications. Diep discusses the limited theatre market for complex, Asian American narratives, the systemic inequalities in journalism, and her growing project, Viet Fact Check —a bilingual fact-checking websit...

Connect with US A conversation with Ping Chong, an American contemporary theater director, choreographer, video and installation artist who was raised in New York City's Chinatown. Internationally recognized as a director, and a creator of interdisciplinary theater work, Ping discusses the influence of Cantonese Opera,  using the "physical body" as an element of performance in theat...

Connect with US A conversation with Priya Darshini, an Indian American singer, composer, and actress whose debut album titled Periphery   has been nominated for a 2021 Grammy for best New Age Album. Priya shares the difficult cultural and personal questions she undertook in the creation of Periphery, the spiritual experience of recording songs in an abandoned church, and how she ended up running a...

Connect with US A conversation with David Henry Hwang, an award-winning Chinese American playwright, librettist, and theatre professor known for his iconic works—M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, and Soft Power—all of which have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. David discusses racial roles in American Theatre, the failure of the model minority myth, and almost losing his life as the victi...

Connect with US Introducing Slant Podcast. Hosted by Dana Tai Soon Burgess, the first choreographer in residence at the Smithsonian, this podcast is an ongoing conversation about art, culture, and belonging in the Asian American experience. Joined by leading voices in the American and International arts, literary, and activism community, this podcast hopes to create a place of generational mentors...