Rockstar Revisited: Charlene Kaye's Alchemical Fringe Show Tiger Daughter

Intergenerational Rockstar Healing Magic in Action! 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

I started blogging every day in 2012. For my 10th ever blog post, I wrote about going to see Charlene Kaye perform her music at the Gramercy Theatre. I didn’t realise this til now, but it was the first little art response I posted on my personal blog! Fast forward to last week, I got to write about her comedy show, Tiger Daughter, here at the fringe. Please read it.

Here’s my original post from 2012:

The words that stand out to me when I revisit this piece are “controlled” and “quiet”, when Tiger Daughter is very loud.

My writing was “controlled” and “quiet”. Just look at the format along: I had a personally imposed max word count of 150 words (and yet, the word fringe still found its way in from the future 🔮🧙🏼‍♀️), I wrote in lowercase, and italicised my words so they were practically falling over from trying to hide.

“Controlled” stings me now like an insult - did I mean that?! Perhaps a better word is deliberate, thoughtful, precise. That you don’t have to shout your throat hoarse to be heard.

I am also especially critical of my old writing. This is a theme explored in Tiger Daughter, actually. Kaye shares photos from that era for us to cringe and laugh at together. Here I found one:

But but I remember this very photo as the height of cool! It was probably on my vision board!

After all, I dressed like this:

However. I was simply ahead of my time. Is that not the Karma jacket?

Back to the Gramercy,

I remember how in that show, the audience was chanting for Animal Love, Kaye’s most upbeat and wild song on the album. When she played it for the encore, the room erupted. I didn’t write about this. I didn’t explore the contrast of energy in her performance, creating rich variety in the way she wields power.

I didn’t write about how cool it was that my mom agreed to make a special trip driving my sister and me from Boston to New York to see this show, headlined by a fellow Asian American artist. You just didn’t say that aloud in 2012. To do so would risk drawing attention to her otherness, and my own.

What a strange full-circle moment, reflecting on this!

I didn’t even realise I was holding back with my words. World events became more intensely wrong and I felt my ignorance shift into urgency to do something but I didn’t know how. 2016 called, and instead of calling out Trump directly, I wrote a pointed and timely essay about the Hunger Games and activism instead, urging people to do the right thing. Vaguely. Sharing links on how to register to vote (and I’ll do it again! If you’re a US citizen abroad, Overseas Vote Foundation has got your back).

Charlene Kaye, however, released this song:

It may have taken years for her boldness to rub off on me, but now look at me, calling out the white supremacist influences on ‘tiger parenting’. I did not question whether to go there. (I mean, I did do some research to make sure this claim was warranted, but I didn’t question whether I was safe to do so). I must emphasise how important her work is.

The ancestors are screaming!

My Korean ancestors, bright, friendly, strong: go! fight!

My spiritual lineage of rockstars and artists, who help me articulate and express this work, have sent me a real life champion in Kaye. She does what I hope to do, and in this particular occasion, that work collided. What an honour!

I have been screaming all year on this personal platform. It is overwhelming to do essentially the same thing, but in a context where it immediately reverberates. My own words appeared back in my inbox through the Fringe of Colour mailing list. Charlene Kaye herself just reposted it:

THIS REVIEW MADE ME SO EMOTIONAL TOO. THANK YOU!

Please read it here, on Fringe of Colour.

X

P.S. In the show, Charlene shows off her Photoshop skills. I do not know how to use Photoshop, but I am proficient in Paint. I’m not hiding that anymore.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼