Automata welcomes rasgos asiáticos, a performance installation that explores the fluidity of borders and identities through inherited stories, fragmented memories, and recurring dreams. Large cargo boxes scattered across the plaza at Chung King Road contain sensory environments that invite viewers to contemplate ancestral histories and the legacies of migration.

Created by writer Virginia Grise in collaboration with scenic designer Tanya Orellana, and featuring sound design by Daniel Gower and lighting design by Scott Bolman, rasgos asiáticos offers space for political and personal excavation in conversation with the histories of LA’s Chinatown and the layered identities that create them. Marlene Beltran (Actor/Singer), Lydia Jialu Li 黎珈璐 (Artist/Traveler), Omi Osun Joni L. Jones (Artist/Scholar) and Feng-Feng Yeh (Founder of the Chinese Chorizo Project) serve as guides to this unique gathering.

rasgos asiáticosis a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by CalArts Center for New Performance (CNP), Valencia; DiverseWorks in partnership with MECA, Houston; Fulcrum Theater, New York; Performance in the Borderlands, Phoenix and NPN with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. rasgos asiáticos was originally developed by CNP and created with additional support from the Princess Grace Foundation Special Project Grant, the National Association for Latino Art and Culture, the MAP Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Writer/Director Lab at Soho Rep Theater, the Asuncion Award for Queer Playwriting at Pregones Theater and California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.