Genny Lim is a native of San Francisco, a poet, playwright, performer, educator, and lifelong activist. Her live poetry and music collaborations have brought her international recognition in Venezuela and Bosnia-Hercegovina and her play Paper Angels was produced in the U.S. as well as Canada and China. She is the author of two books of poetry, Winter Place and Child of War and coauthor of Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island. She frequently collaborates with musician-composer Francis Wong, and has performed with other top artists, including Max Roach, Herbie Lewis, John Santos, and Jon Jang.
Genny Lim will be joined at the Other Words Festival by composer-musician Francis Wong, director and co-founder of Asian Improv Arts, San Francisco’s premier arts organization dedicated to traditional and innovative Asian and American music, dance, and performing arts practices. Francis Wong performs internationally as a musician (saxophones, flutes and other reeds; violin, among other traditional string instruments), and has produced dozens of recordings for Asian Improv Arts and other music labels. Together with the late pianist Glenn Horiuchi and percussionist Elliot Humberto Kavee, Lim and Wong’s recording of Devotee (a work inspired by the life of Francis Wong’s mother, Noela Maria Wong, who grew up in Mauritius, 1000 miles off the coast of South Africa) documents these two artists’ longstanding collaborative practice.
