As the surge in federal immigration raids draws protests and creates unease across the Twin Cities, local textile artists, playwrights and dancers are using their work to explore questions of freedom and resistance this weekend. 

Ten minutes, one question

Theater Mu’s New Eyes Festival returns this weekend, asking playwrights nationwide to respond to the question: “What does freedom mean to you?” through 10-minute staged readings. 

Among the seven selected playwrights is Katie Ka Vang, whose full-length play “Hmong Futures” premieres in April at Gremlin Theatre in St. Paul. 

“I kind of grew up with stories, and the first storyteller was my mom,” Vang said. “She’s almost 80 and a Hmong refugee immigrant. Back in her time, women didn’t have a chance to speak.” 

The youngest of seven, and the only sibling born in the United States, Vang remembers sitting with her mother, absorbing tales that were sometimes funny, sometimes emotionally raw. Those stories planted the seed for Vang’s plays, which center on Hmong American experiences. 

“At first I wanted to be an actor, but then I realized that there were no Southeast Asian stories, let alone Hmong stories written by Hmong American people,” she said. “That led me to creating and writing plays.” 

Vang’s development of “Hmong Futures” emerged from deep engagement with the Twin Cities community, including family-style dinners, story circles with elders, and a digital collage project at a national Hmong conference that collected more than 400 responses. 

From these conversations, three issues kept coming up: intergenerational well-being, the preservation of language, and confronting the patriarchy. 

Vang will read an in-progress excerpt from the play on Sunday, tracing these themes across three generations — a grandmother, a mother and a middle-aged daughter. 

Another perspective comes from Boston-based playwright Brandon Zang, whose 10-minute play “Ammo” examines freedom through the lens of Asian American and immigrant identities.

 “I wrote ‘Ammo’ when I was really thinking about the difference in perspective between a multi-generational Asian American whose family has been here for a very long time and is deeply entrenched in the culture of America and how that perspective differs from that of a recent immigrant,” Zang said. 

The play centers on two young characters: Paige, a multigenerational Chinese American who has felt the sting of systemic exclusion, and Yip, a recent immigrant from Hong Kong with a nearly idealized view of America. 

Their story unfolds as Paige teaches Yip how to handle a gun, exploring the complex realities of self-protection and trust in a new country. 

“I like to write young characters because I think they’re able to tell the truth in a way that we are sometimes afraid to do. I think that kind of unadulterated truth is exactly what we need in our current political climate,” Zang said. “I would like the audience to consider the flaws of these characters and the flaws within all of us.”

Boots on the ground

At St. Catherine University, two Minneapolis textile artists are doing the work of mending. 

In the East Gallery, Marjorie Fedyszyn’s “No Where, Now Here” uses handmade paper and textile abstractions to document a decade-long journey of transforming childhood trauma into artistic joy. 

In the West Gallery, Alexandra Beaumont’s “Boots on the Ground” confronts the very language of occupation. The title reclaims a phrase historically used for the deployment of troops and returns it to the community. Through towering cloth banners, Beaumont explores the tension between state control and the defiant rhythm of the “Boots on the Ground” viral line dance. Beaumont reminds us that in a city under watch, dance can be a form of protest.

A dance along the river

The Phoenix Chinese Dance Academy in St. Paul will debut its latest production, “Voyage Along the Yellow River.” The dance drama traces the 3,395-mile journey of China’s second-longest river, bringing to life the cultures that have flourished along its banks through costumes, live music and Chinese choreography.