The Super-Heroic
Stationary Journey
of Ming Kuang Chen
April 2005.
Chinese restaurant deliveryman Kuang gets trapped in an elevator.
Working at Happy Dragon Restaurant, he pays off his $60,000 debt to smugglers for his passage from China to the United States; from a country touted as the next global economic superpower to a country founded on the ideals of democracy and freedom.
After three days, he emerges dehydrated and terrified into a New York media blitz. Stuck Elevator is a solo performance opera prompted by the true story of an undocumented immigrant/indentured slave in 21st century America. | Every half-hour, another person becomes a slave in the United States. E. Benjamin Skinner
Stuck Elevator is currently being created by composer Byron Au Yong and hip hop poet Aaron Jafferis. Their next residency is in June 2008.
The development and 2007 workshop presentation of Stuck Elevator was made possible in part through funding from 4Culture, Artist Trust and the Asian & Pacific Islander/Artist Presenting Initiative (API/2) at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC), supported by the James Irvine Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.
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