Kao Kalia Yang

press release: Community Rooms 301 & 302

In the Hmong tradition, the song poet is the keeper of the stories of his people: their history, tragedies, joys and losses; it is he who invokes the spirits and the homeland. The Song Poet introduces a young Bee, orphaned as a child, and we watch as he grows into his art—collecting the whispers and words of the people around him and giving them voice. His songs follow as he grows into manhood in a Laos ruined by war, as he is forced into a Thai refugee camp, and then into exile. They follow him all the way to a St.