Credits: Music and Concept by Fred Ho
Directed by Mira Kingsley
Martial Arts Choreography by Jose Figueroa
Costumes by Kenneth Chu
Original scenic design by Michael Forrest Kurtz
Shaolin Secret Scrolls by Tong Kun-feng Chen
Written by Fred Ho and Ruth Margraff.

A 17th Century martial arts legend is transformed into a martial arts ballet and epic-adventure fable of intrigue, opportunism, betrayal and revolutionary redemption. Combining music, theater and fantastic Chinese martial arts, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINESE AMERICA… is a heroic story of the betrayal of the legendary Shaolin Temple by a renegade monk who allies with the Manchu imperial forces to destroy the temple. While sacking the temple, the traitor Gar Man Jang finds the Shaolin Secret Scrolls, the accumulated knowledge of all martial arts, and in absorbing the Scroll's deadly power, becomes invincible. But the price of invincibility is the terrifying transgender metamorphosis of Gar Man Jang from a human woman to a man of supernatural destructive force. The Five Monks who escape the destruction embark upon a 20 year adventure in which they each innovate new forms of martial arts, and create new schools based on these forms.

After many years, they reunite in a hidden marsh fortress to plot a mighty insurrection against the Ching (Manchu) Empire and take revenge upon their deadly traitor. These Five Ancestors as there were to be called -- Chen Jack (visionary leader and Tai Chi master), Gee Shin (Builder and Healer and Long Pole expert), Miao Hin (Protector and Master of Knives and Snake style Kung Fu), Li Wen Mao (Cantonese Opera revolutionary artist and Crane-style kung fu master) and the female nun Ng Mui (Teacher and Propagandist and the greatest hand-to-hand boxer of all time) would finally confront their bitter enemy Gar Man Jang in a magnificent climactic battle.



ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINESE AMERICA… is composer Fred Ho's newest action-adventure music/theater/ballet epic, commissioned by the World Music Institute, The Mary Flagler Cary Trust and The New York State Council on the Arts.

Featuring a narrator/actor performing text written by Fred Ho with music performed by Ho's sextet, The Afro Asian Music Ensemble, ONCE... is a pioneering, groundbreaking, revolutionary multicultural work in a never before-seen explosive combination and fusion of dance and movement forms with pyrotechnical Chinese martial arts. An hour long epic action-adventure and fantasy fable, Fred Ho developed this new work as part of his growing body of opera/ballet/musical theater works aimed at both children, teenage and adult audiences. Blending in a highly visualized ballet with driving music, these works are Mr. Ho's challenges and cultural opposition to commercial music videos and MTV, to the pop culture idiocy and fake martial arts as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Xena, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and David Carradine/Kung Fu.

Fred Ho has created an exciting and sophisticated body of performance works that will mesmerize, entertain and educate the youngest of children as well as the most jaded of adult contemporary performance audiences.

ONCE UPON A TIME... was created to be a modern fable about the bitterness of betrayal and opportunism and the strength of loyalty, principles and integrity. While set during the early Ching dynasty in China (around the 1600's), with the overthrow of China's Ming Dynasty by the foreign Manchus, Fred Ho has reworked and revisioned a martial arts legend to serve as a radical allegory about the betrayal of late-20th century activism in the Asian American Movement by the role of sell-outs internal to that movement. It is a story of external aggression operating with the collusion and support of internal disloyalty and self-aggrandizement. The story also educates about the necessity to discard old forms and techniques that have been coopted and appropriated and to innovate new forms and methods in order to achieve transformation and liberation.

The intrigue of Chinese politics, the intense drama of Chinese opera, the grandness of Chinese heroic literature, the virtuostic power of Chinese martial arts are used to illustrate themes of betrayal and bravery, subterfuge and survival, lust for power and loyalty to principle, of determination in the face of destruction and defeat, and of integrity versus invincibility.

Vital to this performance will be an artist residency program and education/humanities outreach component to public schools from first grade to senior high school. Chinese martial arts, including Tai Chi Chuan, will be taught by the martial artist performing in the work to physical education classes. The primary objective is to combine body, intellect and spirit, not just teach defense skills, but to develop breathing, concentration, mental discipline, self-control, ethical behavior, self-respect, cultural diversity appreciation, health and nutrition, conflict resolution skills, and performance experience.

One of the artists, Jose Figueroa, a Puerto Rican native of the South Bronx, has pioneered a revolutionary usage of Tai Chi and Wu Shu (China's national martial art) in inner city schools with amazing results that have dramatically improved academic performance, increased self-esteem and personal discipline. Mr. Figueroa has served as a physical education specialist, curriculum developer and multicultural educator along with being a seven time national and world champion martial arts gold medal winner. It is planned that Mr. Figueroa, along with several other martial artists who perform in the cast, to be in residency in public schools to implement a martial arts curriculum and to involve the students in performing the actual work.

Commissioned by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the World Music Institute and the New York State Council on the Arts, the John Harms Center for the arts with support from Mrs. Mary Sharp Cronson/Works and Process Series at the Guggenheim Museum and Ms. Tina Chen.



For 2002-2003 33 city U.S. tour, presented by Columbia Artists Management Inc. click here.