Chink-O-Rama Home Page

Kate Rigg and the Chinkorama dancers

Kate's Chink-O-Rama
featuring the Chinkorama Dancers

Funky Urban Comedy with all the flava and extra MSG

Kate's Chink-O-Rama deconstructs, repositions, ridicules, explodes, embodies, satirizes, re-visions, dissects, reconstructs addresses, discusses, challenges images of Asian America found in pop culture and mass media. It is funny, a-political, political, irreverent, scathing, hilarious, silly, astounding, and touching. Using a combination of sketch, wild musical numbers, hot fly girl dancing, character monologue, stand up and song parody, it's a comedy music revue in the style of In Living Color, but with a decidedly asian slant. (get it?).

It has a large cult following in New York city and for the past couple of years has been in residence at one of the city's "hotspots" Joes's Pub at the Joseph Papp Public Theater. Kate's Chink-O-Rama has been featured in TIME, Newsweek, backstage, BUST Magazine, THIS Magazine, The Toronto Star, The San Francisco Chronicle, Asia Week, A Magazine and many others. It has toured to college campuses around the country and portions have been performed on NBC, NPR, CTV, STAR TV.

Chink-O-Rama Did you say CHINK?

The use of the word chink, while controversial is intentionally political in its co-option of racist language to expose its negative impact on culture. Tongue in Cheek, the re-possession of language in this case begins with the etymology of the word chink, which is purportedly a diminutive for "Chinese" but as most asian Americans will tell you, Koreans, Thai people, Japanese people, Malaysians, Indonesians, Filipinos, and other members of the A/PI community have been potential targets for the word, which racistly assumes that all asian people are/look the same. Hence the cast of chink-o-rama is ethnically diverse and often of mixed race. Other words such as gook, nip, slant, etc are used in the show interchangeably as part of the whole disempowerment and relocation of the images associated with the words.

Song Parody. Dance numbers.

So say many pundits and comedy snobs. Kate's Chink-O-Rama is way more fun than an essay on semiotics. It asserts the right of Asian Americans to be visible in pop culture by re-placing traditionally "white/black/whateva" images from pop and hip hop, with amer-asian jokes and stories, hot asian fly girls and the powerful presence of Lady-K and MC Chink Daddy rocking the mic. Songs like the Charlie Chaniels Band doing "Devil Went down to Juilliard" and "Wok This Way" featuring asian chicks in blonde wigs lap dancing surprised audiences challenge assumptions about the martial artist/laundry boy/manicurist/masseuse/ping pong shooting/ delivery boy/ pidgin speakin/ Charlie Chan/ Suzy Wong/ math nerd/ blushing lotus petal that exists in the media's mail order mind.

In the beginning.

The company for Kate's Chinkorama came together gradually. Kate Rigg (Lady-K/asian) began performing diverse characters in the style of Whoopi Goldberg/John Leguizamo/Tracey Ullman in NYC comedy clubs in early 1998 after her graduation from the drama division of the Juilliard School. Exploring a variety of characters some major themes about the Asian American Identity began to emerge and soon she joined forces with Korean American actor David Jung (MC Chink Daddy/ C.Diddy) and they created their first song parody "Rice Rice Baby". When she was invited to perform at PSNBC under a one month option to NBC TV, the idea for the Kate's Chinkorama emerged. The Chinkorama Dancers were assembled in the form of two Juilliard dance graduates Kimiye Corwin (Euro-Chink) and Charlotte Griffin (Hi yella chink) , along fellow Juilliard Actor Kim Awon (Afro-Chink) and modern dancer Satomi Shikata (Nip Chink) who recently moved here from Japan. Eventually Korean B-Girl MiRi Park approached the cast after one of the shows and soon became the fifth dancer in the company adding breakdance to the variety of styles embodied in the diverse talent of the chinkorama dancers. Finally intrepid director Dave Mowers, a colleague of Kate's from the Manhattan Theater Club and reknowned solo performer/writer, joined the fray and continues to shape and sculpt the vision of Chink-O-Rama. Typically the show runs 1 hour 15 minutes, involves 2 actors and 3 dancers and is easily scaled down or up depending on venue.

See a hot trailer of Kate's Chink-O-Rama: featuring the Chink-O-Rama dancers
QuickTime Movie or Windows Media

Chink-O-Rama Show History:

2000 PSNBC/HERE Theater Center,
2000 Montreal Comedy Festival (excerpts)
2000 Collective Unconscious Theater-NY Fringe Festival
2001 Buddies in Bad Times Theater Toronto,
2001 HBO Time Warner Workspace Los Angeles
2001 Museum of Natural History A/PI Awareness Week
2002 Brava Center For Women in the Arts, San Francisco
2002 Improv, Irvine (opening for Dave Chappelle)
2000-2003 part of Joe's Pub at the Public Theater's ongoing season of programming
2003 Wesleyan University Asian Awareness Month,
2003 Swarthmore Diversity Program,
2003 NYC Pridefest in Bryant Park (excerpted),
2003 NYU Asian Awareness Month (excerpted)
2004 Sonoma State University
2005 Joe's Pub at the Public Theater NYC
2005 Cal State LA
2005 UCSB

also: STAR TV, Because I said So CTV, Canada AM, CBC Radio, NPR Pacific Time, Carolines On Broadway, Gotham Comedy Club, Don HIlls, Improv, Boston Comedy Club, Stand Up New York, Cutting Room and more...

KATE'S CHINKORAMA IS A LOT OF CHINKY CHINKY BANG BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

RICE QUEEN? RAD COLLEGE STUDENT? MUSICAL THEATER FAG? EDGY POLITICO? CULTURE VULTURE? FUNKY URBAN ASIAN? GROOVY CITY DWELLER?

THEN KATE'S CHINKORAMA IS FOR YOU, HONEY.

Order the Best of Kate's Chink-O-Rama Live CD $12.00 USD
Includes:

"I will Survive " Sung by Suzy wong Ching Chong
"Rice Rice Baby"
"The China Latina Song"
"Chinatown" (click to download .mp3)
"Whip It" sung by Shanti Om Shanti
"Wok This Way"
plus funny sketches from Chink-O-Rama!!!!

Attention pirates:
We are still poor assed artists so if you go copying and printing our music for your cheapo friends, it sucks because not only do we lost the few bucks but also we risk getting ripped off content wise before we are famous enough to prove it. So support the new wave of Asian American Flava by refraining from using your good education to bury our freshness…

Upcoming Performances

date, venue, website, phone, etc.