Songs of the Diaspora
Premiering June 2025
“Memories inhabit us
They are our DNA
Pulling us back to
the corpse of history
where faces emerge
from cracks in the earth
Where stories well up
from bottomless springs
flooding the dawn
with forgotten songs
we often cannot bear…”
an excerpt from Epilogue by Genny Lim
“Songs from the Diaspora” honors poet Genny Lim’s connection with her Chinese ancestry and her desire to create art that inspires the next generations. In her work, Genny has found parallels between the Chinese traditions around ancestral lineage with the songline tradition of Australian Aboriginal culture, which uses music as a way of mapping, sharing geographic knowledge intertwined with spirituality, symbolism and connection to cultural origins. Genny’s artistic voice finds ground in using her identity and past as a way of forging art, music, and poetry for future generations.
To read Genny’s poetry or hear it performed live is to be immersed in a voice that holds great power through raw truth, evocative vulnerability, and feminine tenacity. In this moment of her career, Genny is receiving lifetime achievement awards but is also reflecting on the legacy that she (and with the female artists who have journeyed with her) will leave for her grandchildren. She is creating something new for herself and also is considering how we shift our storytelling in order for the next generation to embrace it.
In this project, new poetry by Genny Lim will be the generative seed to spark the musical imagination of three composers as a way of connecting back to their own ancestry, laying down musical maps for future generations. With a backdrop of an immersive theatrical experience, created by Mark Hellar and Olivia Ting, the Del Sol Quartet will weave Genny’s new poems into an evening length performance of new works by composers Theresa Wong (2nd generation Chinese-American), Meilina Tsui (1st generation from Kazakhstan and Hong Kong, of the Dungan minority), and Vivian Fung (2nd generation Chinese/Canadian).
Read about Genny’s work and check out this video created by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC)
Former San Francisco Arts Commissioner and SF Jazz Poet Laureate, Genny Lim has impacted the artistic community as poet, playwright, performer, teacher, and collaborator. She is the author of five poetry collections and an anthology of Senior Asian American memories. Her award-winning play Paper Angels, set at the Angel Island immigration barracks, was the first Asian American play to air on PBS’s American Playhouse and was produced throughout the U.S., Canada, and China. She is notably co-author of Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island.
This project is made possible in part by a grant from The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund that also is supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
