Antonius-Tín Bui

upon skin, upon stone is a dance narrative film (12 mins) that premiered on September 26th through Washington Project for the Arts for KUVV, a multidisciplinary, collaborative project organized by choreographer and performance artist Hayley Cutler, exploring the relationship between home, familial lineage, and the body.

Selected through an open call this past spring, Emily Ames, Antonius and Theresa-Xuan Bui, Jamie Garcia, Akela Jaffi, Juliana Ponguta, and Vyette Tiya worked independently and in conversation with each other throughout the summer to create intimate responses to Hayley Cutler's prompt: How does your familial lineage live in your physical body today, and how does that contribute to your sense of home as it relates to your identity?

The history of U.S. military intervention in Southeast Asia complicates attempts to center Southeast Asian (SEA) refugees in public commemorative spaces. SEA refugees remind the American nation of a tumultuous and divisive era, a morally questionable and unsuccessful war, and the humiliation of military withdrawal and defeat. Through monuments and other sites of public memory, the U.S. has remembered the American nation and American veterans as the primary victims of the war, while framing SEA bodies and the devastation of their homelands as necessary “collateral damage” in the progress towards freedom and democracy. The millions of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao, and Hmong who perished as a result of this failed imperial misadventure remain nameless, indiscernible, while American veterans each have their names carved in stone. When SEA refugee bodies do emerge in mainstream commemorations, they are often portrayed as being assimilated, successful, and grateful for the “gift” of the American Dream. Having been “saved” by American intervention, their bodies on American soil today serve as evidence that the war in Southeast Asia, and perhaps other wars, no matter what the cost, are ultimately justified and necessary.

Responding to various Vietnam Veterans Memorials on the East Coast, Theresa and Antonius will complicate our understanding of the Vietnamese diaspora through intuitive movement and poetry. Oscillating between intense stillness and chaos, they explore the phenomena of reverb as a metaphor for assimilation. Beginning with references to our traditional Vietnamese-Catholic upbringing, our movements will echo into glimpses of an Asian-American futurism.

still from the “1/1000th” video for this year’s dedication

This gong is cast out of 3,000 bullet casings, 1/000 of the estimated 3 million individuals who lost their lives during the Vietnam War.

This is a part of the Missing Piece Project which envisions a nationwide, coordinated, mass dedication of objects at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC on April 30th by Vietnamese, Lao, Hmong, Cambodian and other communities still affected by the conflict in SouthEast Asia.

Due to COVID-19 this year the dedication is virtual. Please click to experience this year’s piece.

"This collective intervention is a way for our voices, as a refugee community, and all of us who were effected by the war, to remember our past and reclaim our histories. To tell our own narratives....Because even though the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is made out of a reflective surface, it does not reflect the voices of the Vietnamese community" -Antonuis Bui

www.missingpiecesproject.org

Artwork Cast by Stephanie Mercedes, commissioned by Antonius Bui, translations by Kim Tran, poetry by Keva Bui, Story by: Trần Văn Tâm

Work in the background by

(left: JOHANNES JAMES BARFIELD

right: AUTUMN WALLACE )