East meets west

Postgraduate student and author, Sunil Badami, will give a personal account of the Asian Australian experience in a performance directed by world renowned photographer and English Media and Performing Arts (EMPA) Visiting Fellow, William Yang.

Stories East and West, part of the popular COOLie Asian Australian Performance Event, is directed by Yang and broadcaster, Annette Shun Wah and investigates Australia's cultural history through photography, performance, and storytelling.

Badami is one of six performers from China, Malaysia, Vietnam and India who will share their family histories on stage.

Yang invited Badami, an author, to take part as a way of including the experiences of an Indian Australian.

"I knew Sunil as a writer, but I also knew he was a good talker, it's been fascinating condensing his fabulous life," said Yang.

Badami said writing his story for stage forced him to "work outside his comfort zone."

"Working with William has been a deeply inspiring experience as a writer, I've had to find new techniques and media to tell the stories that are close to my heart."

He says the personal accounts of the performers explore Asia's diversity and Australia's growing pluralism.

"Stories East and West, confounds expectations of what 'Asian' or 'Australian' mean, especially to those of us who, as Salman Rushdie would say, 'straddle both stools'."

Badami will complete his dissertation "Lies That Tell the Truth: Novelists of the Past, Historians of the Present" next year.

Media contact: Fran Strachan| fran.strachan@unsw.edu.au | 9385 8732 | 0429 416 070