ABSTRACT
In the 1960s and 1970s, at precisely the moment when “Asian American” was being articulated through political and community activism, a group of Asian American artists created radical new forms of artistic expression and made foundational contributions to the development of performance art. This chapter explores the artistic practices of Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, and Shigeko Kubota through this pivotal period. Though often considered as distinct from the political works of Frank Chin and other artists more directly associated with the Asian American movement, these foundational Asian American artists also challenged the limitations of race, gender, and sexuality that had been placed on bodies onstage. This chapter explores key works by these artists in order to survey the often overlooked avant-garde origins of Asian American performance. In their performance work, assumptions about the boundaries between subject and object, performer and audience, and the aesthetic and the everyday are broken down and disrupted, making possible a new set of meanings for the performing body. These artists were a significant part of the radical energies of the time that shaped both Asian American activism and Asian American theatre.
