PODCAST: Lost Underground

Premiering Fall 2023, Lost Underground (2023), a historical podcast.

 
Episode 1 - The Cultural Revolution
Episode 2 - Coming soon

The Misty Poets 

In the 1960s, at great risk to their lives, a group of teenagers in China defied the authoritarian regime by reading and writing forbidden texts, painting and exhibiting avant-garde works of art, and exploring western music. Held in secret, these early underground salons laid the groundwork for a movement called “The Misty Poets.” Their stories from China’s Cultural Revolution have been buried by fear and fading memory. We present these stories to preserve a history that should never be forgotten and also reflects the struggles continuing in America and around the globe. (For our purposes, some names have been changed to protect the identities of those still living in China.)

 Painting from the Salon ca. 1970

Excerpts from Podcast

“With the start of the cultural revolution in 1966, schools all over the country closed. So by the time that Mao made the declaration in 1968, many of the children who followed Mao’s rallying cry to “go up into the mountains and down to the countryside” had already ended their education after elementary school. The transfer engulfed about 10 percent of China’s urban population. Every family had to send one family member to the countryside. These children are referred to today as the Lost Generation.

The members of our salon were among the people who came back or didn't leave the city. They were teenagers left alone in Beijing for three full years without adult supervision.“

-Episode 1, Lost Underground

“The excitement overrode any sense of exhaustion. We lived on pure adrenaline. But the result of our naivete coupled with sleeplessness led us to unimaginable passion and often reckless behavior. Our minds took us to the surreal. I can only explain that what we felt was more real than real. We were drunk, not on liquor, but on the sheer joy of being alive and in the moment. There was no tomorrow. There was no ticking of time. There was only the sense of now. Hormones raging we were fearless and free to explore each other and ourselves physically and emotionally. There were no holds barred.“

- Episode 6, Lost Underground

“All music schools were closed and instruments destroyed. Many of our friends, including ourselves, destroyed precious instruments in order to avoid such severe punishment. I watched a piano being burned in a courtyard so the owner could deny being a counter-revolutionary. I suspect that he just couldn’t hide such a big instrument and burning was the only way to save his own life. These instruments were considered tools of the upper class. Mao said there is no such thing as art for art’s sake, and that all music belonged to defined classes and political lines. While abolishing western music, Mao created revolutionary sounds and songs for his political purposes.“

- Episode 8, Lost Underground

Featuring…

  • Kathy Hsieh as Li Mei Ling

    Kathy Hsieh is a Co-Executive Producer with SIS Productions, the Racial Equity in Grantmaking Strategist with the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and is an award-winning actor, writer and director who works to create greater visibility and equity for theatre artists, especially those from communities who are less represented in the field. Recent projects include Seattle Shakespeare’s Drum & Colours productions of Hamlet and As You Like It, Book-It’s The Three Musketeers, and Macha Theatre Works’ Notes for My Daughter and Snow Woman. Next up, she can be seen in Sound Theatre’s Gaslight Project (Angel Street).

  • Shin Yu Pai as Li Luli

    Shin Yu Pai is creator and host of the award-winning, chart-topping podcast Ten Thousand Things for KUOW, Seattle's NPR affiliate station. Named as one of the best podcasts of 2023 by Mashable, Ten Thousand Things has received recognition from the Asian American Podcasters Association and won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award and a Silver Signal Award. In addition to being an arts writer, Shin Yu is a poet with 13 books. In 2024, she received the Shelley Memorial Award for her work in poetry.

  • Director Gavin Reub

    Gavin Reub is a multidisciplinary director, producer, and dramaturg. He is the Artistic Director of The Seagull Project, and has directed at ACT Theatre, Hugo House, Lewis and Clark College, and the Ilkhom Theatre in Tashkent Uzbekistan. He won the Gregory Award for Outstanding Production in 2015 for their The Three Sisters. Gavin is a founding member of interdisciplinary group Cheat Day, which premiered their full-length concert/immersive event at Nii Modo in 2018, and have performed in venues across Seattle, NYC, and Lima-Peru. He is the Director of Creative Development for Umbrella Project, a new play accelerator; teaches at Coyote Central and with Path with Art; is a resident artist at Jack Straw Cultural Center, and member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab.

  • Mimi Gan as The Narrator

    DescriptiMimi Gan is a multiple Emmy-award winning journalist and principal of Mi2 Media who specializes in social impact documentaries. Mimi has been honored with 12 Emmys, an AWRT Gracie Award, and NATPE Iris. For 16 years, Mimi was a reporter/producer for Seattle’s KING TV/NBC’s Evening Magazine. She also served as a science correspondent for The Discovery Channel’s Beyond 2000 and national story producer for San Francisco’s PM Magazine. Mimi directed the jury and audience award-winning documentaries, GIANTS and With Honors Denied, which screened at Tribeca and dozens of film festivals. Passionate about the arts and social justice, Mimi serves as a trustee for and Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience and Seattle Children's Theatre. She is a past president of the Asian American Journalists Association, Seattle. In 2021, Mimi co-created Our Stories Are Your Stories (ourstoriesareyourstories.com) an Emmy-nominated and Anthem Award-winning storytelling campaign in response to anti-Asian Hate. In 2020, Mimi co-founded SeattleUnite.org, a coalition of social and racial justice organizations to engage voters and promote democracy. Mimi received an A.B. in Sociology: Social Sciences from Stanford University. www.mi2mediallc.com

Paintings from the Salon