In 2022, Chinatown’s Edge on the Square put on its first annual arts festival, "Neon was Never Brighter," an introduction to the neighborhood through its historical lighting. The following year the art hub examined warmth and collective healing with "Under the Same Sun". Last year, with "High Five," the festival got more abstract, inviting people to explore Chinatown through the elements.

This year, as in previous ones, the festival includes visual arts, dance, installations, performance, and activities for children and adults on four neighborhood streets — Grant Avenue, Waverly Place, Ross Alley, and Wentworth Place. But the theme, "SUPER FLEX," which encourages participants and festival visitors to think about shadow selves and alter egos, is a direct response to the current political climate, says Candace Huey, Edge on the Square’s head curator.

“It’s kind of like a confrontation. We're flexing and Chinatown is flexing, as well. We're not backing down,” she said. “It has a force, a velocity and strength. It's unapologetic.”

Huey along with guest curators Theo Lau and Taraneh Hemami put together September 13’s line up, which kicks off with the senior cabaret dance troupe the Grant Ave Follies along with Oakland rapper Seiji Oda. Then visitors can make a superhero puppet and shoot a short video of the puppet’s adventures, see a performance that combines calligraphy with queer nightlife, or have conversations over tea in a handmade teahouse, among many other options.

Artist Rene Yung's contribution to "SUPER FLEX" symbolizes protection by way of a woven cord consisting of shredded immigration papers.

Artist Rene Yung came from Hong Kong. To become a naturalized citizen, she had to pass a test of 100 questions, covering topics from the Constitution to American history and geography. For her project for the festival, Yung shredded the tests and made them into cordage or twine and then twisted that into talismans of symbolic protection. Visitors can weave their own objects with Yung and join in a procession with a call and response of the questions.

The test has changed, Yung says. “When I was applying, I was astonished at the number of questions screening for communism that are no longer on the Q and A,” she said. “I remember being viscerally struck by how much power these questions have over the fate of an immigrant.”

Artist Sholeh Asgary plans to string up 41 transistor radios in Wentworth Alley and intends to produce a broadcast of the sonic composition of the alley. Main Image: Cabaret dance troupe, Grant Avenue Follies; Photo by Henrik Kam

Sholeh Asgary found the idea of creating something for just one day a unique challenge. Researching the neighborhood, she learned Chinatown has 41 alleys and was fascinated to discover Golden Star Radio, the first Chinese language radio program in North America.

“One of the stories that I came upon was the broadcasters would embed messages from immigrants overseas informing their friends and families we're okay and this and that,” she said. “To me, this felt so connected to our theme and to the actual tool and thinking about what's happening today.”

Asgary plans to string up 41 transistor radios in Wentworth Alley. She is creating a Chinatown map, and she plans both a live broadcast and a recorded one of the sonic composition of the alleys.

For You, the performance collective started by Erika Chong Shuch, Ryan Tacata and Rowena Richie, lives up to its name, doing personal theater performances for individuals. During the pandemic, worried about how cut off their own parents and grandparents were feeling, they started Artists and Elders. Another pandemic project was the Great AAPI Print Off, inspired by the posters in the windows communicating support or love or humor. In workshops, they made posters people could print out for free.

Tacata says after all the focus on isolation and loneliness, they wanted to do something silly and fun. They decided on a sci-fi movie (sure) about the moment of first contact between an alien and an earthling. The worked with elders to draw what they imagine an alien to look like and made costumes based on the drawings.

For the festival, their installation "The Long, Long Wave" focuses on the welcoming act of a greeting.
“There's so much that's given over in the gesture of raising your hand and signaling to another person, like, ‘Hi, I see you, and you see me.’ It's this beautiful moment of recognition that's physicalized,” Tacata said. “So the "Long, Long Wave" is this premise that if we continue our search for extraterrestrial life, wouldn't it be so incredible if the extended wave was that of Chinese elders?”

In what Tacata describes as a participatory installation/video booth, people can draw their interpretation of an alien, as well as see previously shot videos.

"Exploring what home, aliens, and belonging means through the arts is meant to give hope and encouragement to people," Huey says.

“Art can be scary for certain people because it is so potent, and that's why arts is usually always one of the first things that certain administrations will cut because it has this potency and power to fight against those that want to take away freedoms,” she said. “The sub theme, shadow selves and alter egos, is thinking about how we can tap into different facets of ourselves to have liberation and freedom that may not be allowed in our daily societal constraints.”

→ "SUPER FLEX"
4th Annual Contemporary Art Festival
Saturday, September 13; 4pm–10pm; FREE
800 Grant Avenue, San Francisco Chinatown