Dmae Roberts

Dmae-Mic-2015-lowDmae Roberts is a two-time Peabody award-winning writer and independent media and theatre artist who has written and produced more than 400 audio art pieces and documentaries for NPR and PRI programs. Her Peabody award-winning documentary “Mei Mei, a Daughter’s Song” is a harrowing account of her mother’s childhood in Taiwan during WWII.  Her  Crossing East, the first Asian American history series on public radio also garnered a Peabody award. The eight-hour series took three years to produce and ran on more than 230 stations around the country. She is now creating the Crossing East Archive Project its 10th anniversary, an online repository of nearly 300 hours of oral history interviews collected for the ground-breaking series.

Video

Mei Mei, A Daughter’s Song -Trailer from Dmae Roberts on Vimeo.

Mei Mei, A Daughter’s Song

Mei Mei, A Daughter’s Song is a cross-cultural tale of a mother and daughter separated by language and culture, yet bound together for lifeIn 1989, producer Dmae Roberts won a Peabody-award for her radio documentary, “Mei Mei, A Daughter’s Song”. It was the first Taiwanese-American radio documentary on public radio. 25 years later, she has created a half-hour film using the audio documentary “Mei Mei” as the soundtrack.Mixing live action, animated effects and archival footage, “Mei Mei” tells the story of Dmae and her mother as they travel to Taiwan together after a long absence.Winner of the 2015 Best Historical Documentary award from the Oregon Independent Film Festival, Mei Mei has also been shown at the Los Angeles CineFest, Rainier Independent Film Festival, Mixed Remixed Festival, the APANO/Tell It Slant event and at the Clinton Street Theatre.

http://meimeiproject.com/film/screenings-info/

Mei Mei film clip – Opera & Battles from Dmae Roberts on Vimeo.

 


FOUR WEB MOVIES made in collaboration with Clark Salisbury as part of the Crossing East Asian American history series which won the 2006 Peabody award and ran on 230 public radio stations. For more info go to http://crossingeast.org/. Also featured is a video from the Coming Home project in Kodiak, AK :

http://mediarites.org/video/

 

Secret Asian Woman

What to call yourself when you don’t have a name? That’s what Dmae Roberts grappled with most of her adult life. In a country that likes to think it celebrates cultural diversity, America still has trouble with multiracial people and trying to have them choose one identity to call themselves. Race and identity continue to be a complex topic and as Dmae charts four decades of history, we hear from her perspective what it’s like to be a “Secret Asian Woman.”

Secret Asian Woman is a personal exploration of identity and Mixed Race by Independent Producer Dmae Roberts, who has to make a daily decision to reveal her ethnicity. Through her personal story, Dmae charts four decades of a search by multiracial peoples for a name. The politics of calling out racism has changed through the years as has identification.

Secret Asian Woman from Dmae Roberts on Vimeo.


 

Rink Tum Ditty
(1975)

Here’s an archival video found by a classmate from Junction City High School. We produced it in speech class all in consecutive single takes. There was no sound so I added a soundtrack.

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Talks

  • Dmae Roberts has acted as guest speaker, moderator for many conferences, classrooms and informal listening sessions.
  • She can speak to groups as small as 20 and auditoriums with more than 300 people.
  • Her topics include multicultural issues, Asian American history, Mixed Race identity, radio production, writing for radio and the stage.
  • She has also taught workshops in radio production, personal storytelling, playwrighting and voice training.
  • She is available for residencies and consultations.

To inquire please detail your request and the estimated budget. 

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© 2016 Dmae Roberts

Stage

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A Project of MediaRites
a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization
Theatre Diaspora is committed to fiercely celebrating and creatively advocating for the Asian American/Pacific Islander experience through stage work.
Visit Theatre Diaspora

 


 

Playwriting

Pompeii
A scene from Volcano Embrace by Dmae Roberts

2001 – THE TIME BETWEEN
AUTHOR of collaborative play for The Grief
Project with Ellen West, Sharon Whitney, Cindy McGean, Vicente Guzman-Orozco and Carmela Lanza-Weil.
Produced at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.

2000 – TELL ME, JANIE BIGO
AUTHOR of comedy with music about an orphan Amerasian woman looking for her birth father.
Produced at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.

2000 – FORBIDDEN DREAMS
AUTHOR of a short pay about the Forbidden City nightclub in Chinatown San Francisco in 1941.
Produced for the Asian Art Explosion.

1999 – VOLCANO EMBRACE
AUTHOR of stage play about myth and geology of volcanoes as a metaphor for violence.
Produced at Dreams Well Studio.

 

Lady Buddha1997 – LADY BUDDHA
AUTHOR of multimedia stage play about myth and culture of Asian Goddess Kuan Yin.
Produced at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.

1997 – JANIE BIGO
AUTHOR of comedy with music about an orphan Amerasian woman looking for her birth father.
Produced at the Northwest Asian American Theatre, Seattle.

1996 – PICASSO IN THE BACK SEAT
AUTHOR of a stage play about the value of art in America today. Winner of the Oregon Book award.
Produced at Artists Repertory Theatre.

A scene from Lady Buddha by Dmae Roberts         Jamie Bigo
A scene from Janie Bigo by Dmae Roberts

1995 – BREAKING GLASS
AUTHOR of a full-length original play about an interracial family in rural Oregon. Published in an anthology published by Temple University Press and edited by Velina Hasu Houston.
Produced at Portland Repertory Theatre.

1991 – MEI MEI (Stage play)
AUTHOR of a full-length multi-media stage play about a mixed race daughter and Chinese mother’s journey to Taiwan. Produced at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.


Awards

Oregon Book Award and Portland Drama Circle award for Picasso in the Back Seat .
Portland Drama Circle award for Mistress Ford in Merry Wives of Windsor.

 


Acting

Dmae as Lady MacBeth

Dmae as Lady Macbeth

Dmae Roberts has had more than 20 years of experience as a working actress. Her favorite roles include Mary Ann in Escape from Happiness (Artists Repertory Theatre), Lady MacBeth in Macbeth, Hortensio in an all-female Taming of the Shrew, Mistress Ford in Merry Wives of Windsor (Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company), Lizzie Borden in Blood Relations (Profile Theatre) and Fannie in On the Verge (Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center). She has received six nominations and two Drammies (Portland Drama Circle Award) in acting and playwrighting.

 

Dmae as Hortensio

Dmae as Hortensio in Taming of the Shrew

 

Radio

MR-logo

Dmae is the executive producer of MediaRites, a nonprofit production organization based in Portland, Oregon, dedicated to telling the stories of diverse cultures and giving voice to the unheard through the arts, education and media projects. Since 1984, MediaRites has produced award-winning radio and film documentaries, interactive websites, theatre and outreach projects.

Visit the MediaRites Radio page.


 

IN THE MIX Claycart

Photo courtesy of Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Mixed Race is the fastest growing minority in America. The arts have opened up new ideas through colorblind casting, fusion in music, visual art, and literature. Just as each racial/ethnic group influences and changes artistic styles and movements, Mixed Race artists help to create fusion and bridges cultural and traditional differences.

In The Mix is a one-hour radio documentary featuring artists of all different disciplines and races. The documentary features Lou Diamond Phillips, Writer Lisa See, Playwright Heather Raffo, Conceptual Artist/Writer damali ayo, Poet Robert Karimi, Musican Phillip Blanchett, Visual Artist Phyllis Fast, Oregon Shakespeare Actor Demetra Pittman and more…visit our website at MixedRaceWorld.org. Produced by Dmae Roberts and MediaRites Productions with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Regional Arts and Culture Council


 

199Unartulik3_TalismanComing Home:
The Return of the Alutiiq Masks

Coming Home is a one-hour NPR-news-friendly radio documentary that interweaves oral history interviews, Alutiiq music and soundscapes.

The documentary takes us to Kodiak, Alaska where Alutiiq peoples work to save their language, cultural traditions and heritage by unlocking the secrets of the masks collected by French explorer Alphonse Pinnart in 1872. When he died in 1911, he bequeathed the masks to the Chateau Musee, a small museum off the coast of Northern France. There the collection survived two World Wars and were “rediscovered” by Alutiiq artists who began making pilgrimages to France in 2000 to see the artifacts of their culture. This led to an unprecedented sharing of history between two cultures, two different countries a world apart.

Learn more at DmaeRoberts.com/cominghome


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[Listen]

Secret Asian Woman is a personal exploration of identity and Mixed Race by  Dmae Roberts, who has to make a daily decision to reveal her ethnicity. Through her personal story, Dmae charts four decades of a search by multiracial peoples for a name. The politics of calling out racism has changed through the years as has identification. In this half-hour radio documentary, Dmae talks with other Mixed Race Asian women with identities not easily recognized and addresses with humor the complexities involved in even discussing race.

Read what John Biewen (Center for Documentary Studies) had to say about Secret Asian Woman on PRX.

Download Secret Asian Woman for broadcast from PRX.

Editorial consultations from Catherine Stifter and damali ayo. Original music by Clark Salisbury. Additional music by Teresa Enrico and Portland Taiko. Interviews with Velina Hasu Houston, Rainjita Yang Geesler, Julie Thi Underhill and Patti Duncan.  Funded by the Regional Arts and Culture Council Individual Artist program.

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outCE

Crossing East
2005-2006

The Peabody-Award winning eight-hour radio documentary series on Asian Pacific American History hosted by George Takei and Margaret Cho. Order downloads here! 

Three years in the making, Crossing East was created for release in May 2006, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. To date, it has aired on more than 230 public radio stations and hailed as the first comprehensive Asian American history series on radio or TV. Crossing East features the work of dozens of producers, scholars, musicians, and actors. MediaRites is in the process of creating the Crossing East Archive with nearly 300 hours of oral histories collected for this series. More here.


Doc Hay

The Story of Ing ‘Doc’ Hay
2005

The Story of Ing “Doc” Hay: Frontier Herbalist tells the unusual and significant story of Doc Hay and his business partner and friend Lung On who ran the Kam Wah Chung store and medical practice in a small Eastern Oregon town shortly after the Gold Rush and into the 1950’s. Unlike other parts of the country where lynchings and massacres of Chinese immigrants were the norm, these two men were respected members of the community and are still remembered by John Day residents. For more information on the Kam Wah Chung museum, visit the Oregon State Parks Trust. Order it here.  Hear the NPR story here.


BCM

The Breast Cancer Radio Arts Project
2002-2004

Order The Breast Cancer Monologues documentary with breast cancer survivors here. Hear a sample. 


Growing

Growing Up, Growing Strong
2003

A series of documentaries about lesbian youth including a Miracle on the Streets about a lesbian homeless youth who kicked a crystal meth addiction and Moe is Me, about a girl’s first love.


Hearing Voices

Heart of Nature
2003

A series of features stories on youth with disabilities and their relationship with their environments.

Includes stories such as: Horse Therapy , Andrew & Racine Go To College, Kara and the Swing, and Challenger Softball Team.


Sorting

Sorting Through Shadows
2002

 


Stories 1st

1st Person: Stories of Loss, Hope & Peace
2001

 


Hope

Legacies: Hope, Faith & Peace
1998

Three one-hour radio documentaries hosted by Oregon Symphony Conductor James DePreist which included The Journey of Lady Buddha,  an hour-long personal and historical exploration of cultural conflicts in spirituality and the search for the Asian goddess of compassion and mercy, Kuan Yin. Order it here.


Legacies

Legacies: Tales from America
1994

A series of 13 half-hour cross-cultural and cross-generational American stories that aired on more than 100 National Public Radio stations around the country.Hosted by Oregon Symphony conductor James DePreist.  Stories include Don’t Take the Colors Apart about playwright Velina Hasu Houston and the Peabody Award-winning Mei Mei, A Daughter’s Song. 


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© 2016 Dmae Roberts

The Letting Go Trilogies

LettingGo-Cover

Dmae Roberts has recently completed her memoir book The Letting Go Trilogies: Stories of a Mixed Race Family which traces four decades of what it means to be a mixed-race adult who sometimes called herself “Secret Asian Woman.

With her personal essays written over a ten-year period, Dmae Roberts journeys through biracial identity, Taiwan, sci-fi, and the trials of her interracial Taiwanese and Oklahoman family amid love, loss and letting go of past regrets and pain.Through journeys across America, Japan and Taiwan, this collection of personal stories charts four decades of racial identity. Each essay lends insights into the complexity of cross-cultural family relationships and includes photographs of the author’s family.

Edited by Jessica Morrell. Additional editor and copy-editing by Sandra de Helen. Artwork and cover design by Kathy Delumpa Allegri.

13413586_10154136865834564_8348812489757482232_nFrom Dmae: “It’s difficult to imagine it was illegal in many states for my parents to be married. I’ve spent much of my adult life thinking about what it meant to grow up in an interracial family in rural Oregon after spending my early childhood in Asia. Many of these stories along with journeys to Taiwan and my experiences as a caregiver to my mom are detailed in my memoir collection.”

Read the latest interview from Grace Hwang Lynch who featured my book on HapaMama.com.  (http://hapamama.com/q-dmae-roberts-author-letting-go-trilogies/)

And hear the interviews about The Letting Go Trilogies:

Susannah Mars of Adventures in Artslandia.

Heidi Durrow of The Mixed Experience podcast

Ken Jones of KBOO’s Between The Covers program. 

Soft cover available for purchase for $14.95 in print on  Amazon   (http://amzn.com/1522998950),  Kindle ( https://amzn.com/B01G7Q912S)  and CreateSpace (https://www.createspace.com/5971338). Also if you’re Amazon Prime members, this book is eligible for two-day free shipping!

If you live in Portland, Broadway Books is offering a special price of $13 for signed copies of my book. Please come and support a premiere Portland independent bookstore. More http://www.broadwaybooks.net.

For more info or if you want to purchase my book via check or PayPal, please email: lettinggotrilogies@gmail.com for details.

Other Work

 

Read Dmae’s “My Turn” columns in the Asian Reporter   Dmae

Dmae has been a monthly columnist for Portland’s Asian Reporter newspaper. She draws from her personal experiences and AAPI issues and concerns. Many of her articles have been collected in her book The Letting Go Trilogies: Stories of a mixed Race Family.  

Read her column here in the Asian Reporter.  http://www.asianreporter.com/columns-Roberts.htm


Three personal essays published in Oregon Humanities magazine are included in Dmae’s first memoir book The Letting Go Trilogies: Stories of a mixed Race Family. 

My Brother, the Keeper
Dmae tries to understand her brother’s need to hoard. Dmae-wholefamily 1

“I just saw my little brother, Jack, digging through a Dumpster at our neighborhood grocery store, and I pretended I didn’t know him. He was in the dirty, torn clothes he likes to wear for what he calls “collecting….”

2012_fall_NextEncore Issue http://oregonhumanities.org/magazine/encore-fall-winter-2011/

Next Issue http://oregonhumanities.org/magazine/next-fall-winter-2012/

Secret Asian Woman

When my mother died, I wondered if I’d still be Asian.
“I’m part Asian,” I’ve said most of my life.
“Oh, which part is that?”
I point to my prominent cheekbones, my best facial feature.
“This part.”
“I see.”  No one really sees. Sometimes I can’t see. I look in the mirror and turn my face to and fro and see Meryl Streep with a flat nose, freckles, and dark, thick hair. Often I look at my beautiful Asian women friends, and while I feel at home, I wonder if they look at me in that sideways manner as well.


From The Sun Magazine Readers Write section

Dmae & Mom

“At the age of ten I became my mom’s sous-chef. She would tell me what vegetables to cut up and always criticize me for doing it wrong. Then, after she heated her wok till the oil was smoking and flames shot up toward the ceiling, she would start to shout: “Garlic! . . . Now the onions! . . . Bring me the carrots and bamboo! . . . Where’s the cabbage? . . . Hurry with the broccoli! Now!”…”

READ ARTICLE (third article on the page)

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Articles about Dmae

Dmae and George Takei

Dmae Roberts and actor George Takei

Telling Stories: Dmae Roberts’ Insightful Works on Multicultural America Posted by Colors of Influence July 2008

Dmae Roberts is a two-time Peabody award-winning independent radio artist and writer who has written and produced more than 400 audio art pieces and documentaries for NPR and PRI programs. Her work – often autobiographical or focuses on cross-cultural peoples – is informed by her biracial identity.

READ ARTICLE


large_Dmae&George

Dmae Roberts and actor George Takei

Posted by The Oregonian April 05, 2007

Portland-based MediaRites, a nonprofit dedicated to telling the stories of diverse cultures, is the recipient of a 2006 Peabody Award for its radio documentary “Crossing East,” the first radio series to examine in detail the history of Asian Americans.

READ ARTICLE

 

Secret Asian Woman

What to call yourself when you don’t have a name? That’s what Dmae Roberts grappled with most of her adult life. In a country that likes to think it celebrates cultural diversity, America still has trouble with multiracial people and trying to have them choose one identity to call themselves. Race and identity continue to be a complex topic and as Dmae charts four decades of history, we hear from her perspective what it’s like to be a “Secret Asian Woman.”

Secret Asian Woman is a personal exploration of identity and Mixed Race by Independent Producer Dmae Roberts, who has to make a daily decision to reveal her ethnicity. Through her personal story, Dmae charts four decades of a search by multiracial peoples for a name. The politics of calling out racism has changed through the years as has identification.

WordPress › ReadMe

WordPress › ReadMe WordPress
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Welcome. WordPress is a very special project to me. Every developer and contributor adds something unique to the mix, and together we create something beautiful that I’m proud to be a part of. Thousands of hours have gone into WordPress, and we’re dedicated to making it better every day. Thank you for making it part of your world.

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Installation: Famous 5-minute install

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