The New York chapter of Kollaboration, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering Asian-American performers, will hold its annual showcase this Saturday at New York University Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.
Aside from being the organization’s biggest event of the year, the showcase is also the nation’s premier talent competition showcase for rising Asian-American performing artists.
“The point of Kollaboration is to help artists break into mainstream media and in order to do that we want for the majority of the audience to recognize that these entertainers are part of their community,” Tanner Chung, executive director of the New York branch of Kollaboration said. “Our target audience is kind of generic in the fact that we try to get the entire community to come to our events because the objective is not to produce a show where it’s strictly for Asian-Americans. It’s to produce a show that the entire community can enjoy.”
Headlining the showcase will be Asian-American rapper Awkwafina. Other guest performers include the dance group I Love Dance and Kollaboration New York 8’s winner IZZY.
Six talented finalists from the Tri-state region, ranging from singer-songwriters to classical music groups, will compete against each other for a comprehensive winner’s package. The showcase winner will also win a chance to fly to Los Angeles to compete in the national Kollaboration Star show against other local winners for a grand prize of $10,000.
“I want people to see the diversity of the talent because I think it changes every year,” Awkwafina said. “I think people will be able to see the range of what Asian- Americans are doing in 2014.”
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Dominique “Peak” Johnson is a North Philadelphia journalist and is one of the founding editors of the North Philly Metropolis. Currently, Peak practices kickboxing, freelances for Generocity.org, and occasionally tweets about “The Walking Dead.” Click here to learn more about Peak.
