For four performances only, the Japanese American National Museum‘s Democracy Center is presenting two Asian American solo performance shows that complement each other in their commentary on how their identity affects their art during these current times.

While both of them still needs some more polishing and fine-tuning in different ways, Bee Vang’s Your Movie Guide to Life and Kurt Kanazawa’s L’OPERA! are nevertheless compelling identity pieces that provide a personal window to their lives and the world around them.

Breaking the Frame: Two Solo Shows on Art and Identity explores what happens when two Asian American solo performers fall deeply in love with Western mediums — movies and opera — only to discover that they both may be in too deep. In the wake of recent “yellowface” accusations on Broadway, Hmong American actor Bee Vang of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino and local-born actor and opera singer Kurt Kanazawa deliver emotionally charged and satirical indictments of two Western art forms that continue to harm Asian Americans and BIPOCs, today.

With both of the solo performances directed by Jeff Liu and co-directed by Kalina Ko, with lighting design and assistant direction by Josh Bennett, the works written and performed by Bee Vang and Kurt Kanazawa not only compliment each other in their unique perspectives but in their pros and cons for both shows. Bee Vang is a much more cohesive and emotionally raw show about his Hmong American identity but due to most of it being presented with a music stand, it was less a solo performance and more of an unmemorized TED talk with some aspects of performance sprinkled in. While he brings up his famous acting turn in Gran Torino quite often, the show becomes absolutely dialed in when he explores the role of U.S. imperialism in his motherland country of Laos.

In one particular sequence, he brings up the graphic of how many times the U.S. military bombed the country of Laos as it holds the unwanted distinction of being the most bombed country in history, as it has been estimated that between May 1964 and 26 February 1973 around 2.26 million ton (5 billion pounds of bombs) of all kinds were dropped along the North to South Ho Chi Minh Trail supply route to South Vietnam. Art often is a reflection of our life so it is impossible to not also think of Palestine and the current genocide conducted by Israel we are witnessing helplessly around the world. Vang draws the comparisons with Gaza itself at the end of the performance with a picture of a Palestinian family grieving over their loved ones as we once again see that U.S. imperialism is very much alive and well.

Next up is Kurt Kanazawa and right from the get-go, there is most certainly a performance flair that highlights his opera music experience throughout. Kanazawa delivers his incredible talent not only as a singer but in providing the show a chaotic inside look at how his opera and acting career intersected and the challenges he experienced throughout his life. More often than not though, the show’s narrative veers off too much into the chaos. His narrative would often lose focus as he also tries to insert real-world events and go back into his own artistic career that more or less seem to suggest he was indeed gifted with an extraordinary talent that was internationally recognized.

Because this show was first performed last year, there were a few recent elements added to comment on not only the ICE abductions and deportations but the current casting controversy with having a white actor in the Broadway production of Maybe Happy Ending. While these additions are undeniably important, they were unfortunately not as successful in its implementation as it didn’t quite add anything to Kanazawa’s already crafted narrative in terms of how it really affected him as an artist and human being (he does comment that his father was injured by an LAPD officer during an ICE protest) but just acknowledging that these were events worth noting. I understand it seems callous to only talk about one’s artistic journey without commenting on world events around them but it would have been for the best to leave them out as I can then probably hone in the omission of Palestine if he brought up Black Lives Matter and the ICE deportations. He ends the show with everyone singing along with him the U.S. national anthem but done in Spanish, just like how Nezza did it to protest the ICE raids in Los Angeles.

Individually, the two shows need some reworking, one to instill the performance aspect and the other on focus but as a whole, they work together to present viewpoints worth seeing not only for the stories they tell but as the artists that they are and their worthwhile life journey experiences. Breaking the Frame: Two Solo Shows about Art & Identity performs from Thursday, August 21 through Saturday, August 23, 2025, in the Tateuchi Democracy Forum. A post-show Q&A panel with the artists will follow the matinee performance on August 23. Tickets are $20 and are available here.