About Face: Performing Race In Fashion And Theater

A provocatively genre-bending text, About Face examines how representations in the fashion and theater industries affect the areas of ethnography, feminist and minority issues, and popular culture. On Thursday, April 16, 1998 at 7:30 p.m., author Dorinne Kondo will be at the Japanese American National Museum to discuss her innovative book for free! Based on Kondo’s fieldwork, this unprecedented book brings together essays, vignettes, and interviews with playwright David Henry Hwang and designer Rei Kawakubo. The Museum is located at 369 East First Street in the Little Tokyo Historic District of Los Angeles, please call (213) 625-0414 for reservations or more information.

In About Face, Kondo examines the use of race, gender, nationality, and sexuality stereotypes in Japanese “avant-garde” high fashion and Asian American theatre, while evaluating representations and assumptions about Orientalism and its place in world culture.