R.A.W. ('cause I'm a woman)

'R.A.W. ('Cause I'm a Woman) is a short play written by Diana Son and directed by Roberta Uno. R.A.W. stands for 'Raunchy Asian Woman,' as the play intends to explore stereotypes about Asian woman, such as that of the geisha, the exotic virgin, or the suicidal Miss Saigon. An all Asian American women cast perform dance, music, and spoken word. Their voices address the politics between mixed raced relationships, specifically between Asian American women and white men; quotidian and apparently minimal things like asian hair in relation to a white woman's hair; the experience of being a queer Asian woman; dating a Korean man from the perspective of a Korean woman, et cetera All the characters come on stage and share their experiences of being Asian women in multiple shapes, forms, and identities.

From 1979-2009, the New WORLD Theater worked at the intersection of artistic practice, community engagement, scholarship, and activism toward a vision of a 'new world' - one that broke the confines of multiculturalism and was an artistic harbinger of America's shifting demographics. From a geographic 'outpost' in New England, New WORLD Theater evolved from a community organizing project and the Northeast point on a theater touring compass, to a protective studio to hone new work, a site of international intersections from South Africa to the South Bronx, and the home of inspired and rigorous collaborations with Western Massachusetts youth. New performance work development at New WORLD defied the conventional theater play lab as ghetto for artists of color; artists were met where they wanted to be in the imagining of new approaches, methods, and production. One of New WORLD Theater's artistic legacies is Project 2050, an early call to imagine the U.S. demographic shift, with people of the future - youth, in equal collaboration with artists and scholars.