Katie Ka Vang & Mu win $100,000 Joyce Award for HMONG FUTURES

Pagnia Xiong (left) and Dexieng Yang in Katie Ka Vang and Melissa Li’s Hmong American musical, Again, which made its premiere at Mu in 2023. Photo by Rich Ryan.

Katie Ka Vang (Again with Melissa Li, WTF) and Theater Mu are one of five recipient pairs of the 2024 Joyce Awards, receiving a landmark grant of $100,000 to support their new commission, Hmong Futures. This theater project will be produced in 2025 or 2026 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Hmong resettlement, a celebration of Hmong American culture in Minnesota, and a way to dream with the community about what a thriving future looks like.

“Through grassroots work and working in the nonprofit cultural arts sector, I saw the power of art as a way to navigate systems, and use storytelling to shift narratives and shape a new reality,” Vang says. “I write in hopes of transformation for me and my Hmong American and Asian American people, and do this by summoning up courage to look at the things we do to ourselves and each other so we can change.”

Supported by the grant for up to 24 months, Vang will develop Hmong Futures through deep engagement with Hmong community members through interviews, story circles, workshop readings, family-style dinners, facilitated conversations, and more. One of the topics of exploration is agriculture in Hmong life—including Vang’s own experience with her mother, who was a farmer in Laos—and its role as a way of practicing culture.

Vang adds, “As a first generation Hmong American, my worldview was largely shaped by my refugee parents' lived experiences related to political persecution, traumatic experiences, displacement, and poverty, and I hope my work is a vessel for myself and my community to co-create ideas that point toward liberation and transformation.”

The 2024 Joyce Award artist recipients. Courtesy of the Joyce Foundation.

The Joyce Awards have been presented to artists of color and their organizational partners in the Great Lakes region for the past 20 years, and this year the grant expanded from $75,000 to $100,000 per recipient, with $30,000 allocated as the artist’s stipend. The other 2024 awardees are Andrea Assaf with the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI); Marcus Elliot with the Detroit Parks Coalition (Detroit, MI); Terry Guest with Chicago Children’s Theatre (Chicago, IL); and Edra Soto with The Sculpture Center (Cleveland, OH). 

“This year’s Joyce Awards artists and organizations are responding to some of the most urgent issues facing our region and beyond. From addressing the impacts of incarceration and war to invigorating and expanding access to public spaces and highlighting the diversity of immigrant experiences and cultural identities, these transformative projects will promote healing and community connections while inspiring social change,” said Mia Khimm, Joyce Foundation culture program director. “We’re proud to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Awards by celebrating the work of artists, organizations, and communities that are helping us to imagine and build a more equitable and vibrant future for the Great Lakes region.”

Past recipients of the Joyce Award include Terence Blanchard, Sanford Biggers, Camille A. Brown, Nick Cave, Sandra Delgado, Larissa FastHorse, Theaster Gates, Rhiannon Giddens, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Bill T. Jones, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Pope.L, Julie Mehretu, Jessie Montgomery, Lynn Nottage, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Rosy Simas, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.

This has been adapted from the Joyce Foundation press release. Read the original document here.