Lost Chinatowns, a solo dance-theater work by Cynthia Ling Lee and directed by Shyamala Moorty, poetically and emotionally illuminates the historical roots of our current era of renewed anti-Asian violence in the US.

Lost Chinatowns explores the destruction, lost vibrancy, and historical erasure of Santa Cruz’s Chinatowns from 1860-1955. Santa Cruz, now known for being the ultra-liberal “leftmost” city of the US, was once the center of virulently xenophobic anti-Chinese racism in California in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Lost Chinatowns (solo) has been developed in part throughBorders Resurfacing, a long distance creative exchange by the Post Natyam Collective.  It has been developed with the support of 3Girls Theatre Company, San Francisco, California; a Hellman Fellowship; and theDancers’ Group’s CA$H grant program.