Sharing Power with GAPIMNY
Sharing Power is a podcast and performance series about distributed leadership and consent-based processes. The podcast, co-hosted by Flux Creative Partners Lori Elizabeth Parquet, Corinna Schulenburg, and Jason Tseng, invites other creators and organizers who are practicing distributed leadership/consent-based processes to discuss how they’re doing it.
Our fifth Sharing Power episode was with Patrick G. Lee and Ryan Shen about their collaboration in GAPIMNY:
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“Whoever’s gonna be co-chair has to be the kind of person who knows their boundaries well enough to be like, listen, I’m really feeling very burnt out…I need to give myself permission to lay down my burden. Because that’s how you close the burnout cycle, is to actually give a second to be like, I’m gonna let it all down for a second, so I can rest long enough that I have the energy to pick it back up.”
-Ryan Shen“This kind of organizing work, I think the rhythm of it and the sociality of it—the relationship building is really what drives it. And when you just boil it down to, like, the logistics of the work itself, something really feels like it’s missing.”
-Patrick G. Lee
Founded in 1990, GAPIMNY is an all-volunteer, membership-based community organization with the mission to empower queer and trans Asian Pacific Islanders* to create positive change. We provide a range of political, social, educational, and cultural programming and work in coalition with other community organizations to educate and promote dialogue on issues of race, sexuality, gender, and health.
THE GUESTS
Patrick G. Lee (they/them) is a queer diasporic Korean documentary filmmaker, writer, and community organizer. They are interested in building collaborative, community-based models of filmmaking that equip queer and trans people of color with media-making skills. Patrick has made films about queer Asian history, LGBTQ self-representation, and Asian American coming out stories. Their work-in-progress feature debut is supported by Queer|Art, Firelight Media, Sundance, and CAAM. Previously, Patrick worked with the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance to help build a vibrant network of queer Asian grassroots groups across the country. In 2018, they helped organize KQTcon, the first national Korean queer and trans conference in the US. Their writing has appeared in The Nation, ProPublica, Mother Jones, The Atlantic, Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal, and more. Patrick has been navigating pandemic times mostly by eating carbs. You can find them on Instagram here or on Twitter @patrickglee.
Ryan Shen (they/them) ) is a trans masculine person with parents who immigrated from Taiwan. They have been involved in LGBTQ API community organizing in NYC since 2009. They have also served on the board of NQAPIA, a national LGBTQ API alliance organization of the USA. They served as co-chair of GAPIMNY, an all volunteer based organization empowering QTAPI with education on issues impacting the community, for the years 2014-2015 and 2021-2023
THE CO-HOSTS
Lori Elizabeth Parquet, co-host, (she/her), is a Flux Creative Partner and actor, director, and playwright from New Orleans, Louisiana with a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Cornell University. Her New York City stage credits include Macbeth, Dispatches From (A)mended America (Off-Broadway, Epic Theatre Ensemble), The Providence of Neighboring Bodies (Dutch Kills Theater/Ars Nova), The Honeycomb Trilogy: Sovereign (Gideon Productions), Medea (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble), Dog Act, Ajax in Iraq, Honey Fist, Operating Systems (Flux Theatre Ensemble), and Republic, Baal, Murder In the Cathedral (JACK/Hoi Polloi). She made her international debut performing in Pillars of Society at Teater Ibsen in Skien, Norway. She also performed in The Providence of Neighboring Bodies at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2018. In 2019 she was nominated for and won the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Lead Role for her performance in Operating Systems. As a director, Lori has directed Topdog/Underdog at Princeton Summer Theater and assistant directed The Public Theater’s most recent Shakespeare in the Park productions of As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. She was alsoas an acting coach on Disney’s Hercules, a Public Works production. Lori just served as Associate Director of New York City Center’s Encores: Off-center production of Maria Irene Fornes’ Promenade and has directed many readings and workshops with Public Works, Flux Theatre Ensemble, The Brooklyn Generator, and other theatre companies across New York City. As a playwright, Lori was selected as one of six featured playwrights for Season Five of The Fire This Time Festival, which produced a reading of her full-length play In Communion, and her short plays have been produced through Flux Theatre Ensemble, New York Madness, and other NYC indie theatres and festivals.
Corinna Schulenburg, co-host, (she-her), is a Flux Creative Partner. She is a trans artist and activist committed to ensemble practice and social justice.As a playwright, her work with Flux includes Riding the Bull, Rue, Other Bodies, The Lesser Seductions of History, Jacob’s House, DEINDE, Honey Fist, Salvage,The Sea Concerto, and Operating Systems. With Flux, she directed Ajax in Iraq (NYITA nomination), A Midsummer Nights Dream, and the Food:Souls Goldsboro and Volleygirls. As an actor with Flux, she has played Sam in Metra: A Climate Revolution Play with Songs; Max in World Builders, Dr. X in Hearts Like Fists, Ezekiel in 8 Little Antichrists (NYITA nomination), and the Professor in Rue.
Jason Tseng, co-host, (they/them) is a queer, non-binary Chinese-American playwright based in New York City, originally hailing from the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Their plays have been presented and developed by Flux Theatre Ensemble, Judson Arts, Mission to dit(Mars), Theatre COTE, Inkubator Arts, Second Generation, Downtown Urban Arts Festival, and LA Queer New Works Festival. They are a Creative Partner of Flux Theatre Ensemble, a member of The Civilians’s 2019/2020 R&D Group, a member of Mission to dit(Mars)’s Propulsion Lab, and their plays have been honored as Semi-finalists for the New American Voices Playwrights Festiva, Bay Area Playwrights Festivall and the Eugene O’Neil National Playwrights Conference. Jason’s full-length plays include Rizing (World Premiere, Flux Theatre Ensemble), Like Father, Same Same, Ghost Money, Fear and Wonder, and The Other Side. Find more at jasontseng.com.
