If you put yourself into something, you will be a successful person because that will help you to express yourself. Maybe nobody else can see it, but you see it.

The People vs. Agent Orange:  Two women, one American and one Vietnamese, fight to hold the chemical industry accountable for the devastation caused by Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides. 

This powerful documentary tells their story, driven home by an innovative cross-cultural score that blends the Vietnamese music of Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ with modern composition and electronics by Blake Leyh.   The People vs. Agent Orange soundtrack release on June 25th.  After many international festival screenings, the film airs on PBS in the United States on June 28th.

Exploring the sounds of souls and lives of people and cultures that live along the Mekong River is greatest joy to work on this production. 

These three roneat instruments were brought home to the U.S from last Thanksgiving research trip in Cambodia. The first part of Mekong Trilogy is coming to you in 2022.

Award-winning Vietnamese composer and traditional multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Võ presents “Resilience: Building Strength through Community Experiences,” the second installment of two interactive performances. 

Together with special guest artist Charya Burt, and Võ’s musical collective, Blood Moon Orchestra, Võ will share stories of immigrant communities’ resilience through music and movement.   About special guest artist Charya Burt: 

Charya Burt is an acclaimed master dancer, choreographer, vocalist, and teacher of classical Cambodian dance who has injected new life into the dance form by creating inventive new works. Following the Khmer Rouge genocide, Burt trained extensively with Cambodia’s foremost surviving dance masters, eventually joining the dance faculty of Cambodia’s Royal University of Fine Arts. Since emigrating in 1993, Burt has performed throughout the United States and has trained thousands of dance students in California. A 2019–2020 Dance/USA Fellow and Isadora Duncan Award recipient for individual performance, she is founder and artistic director of Charya Burt Cambodian Dance.  

This program was presented at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in partnership with the Vietnamese American Non-Governmental Organization (VANGO) Network and Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN).   

Van Anh Vo’s Blood Moon Orchestra is a genre-bending musical collective  that defies the bounds of Vietnamese traditional music, hip-hop/rap, and  breakdance. All master musicians, members of BMO have an innate ability to blend very different sounds together, creating surprisingly new and fresh musical dialogues.  

Beginning back in 2015 as an initiative by RIGHTSTARTER (drummer/producer PC Muñoz and rapper DEM ONE), current director/composer Van-Anh took over the creative directorship in 2017. BMO concerts address social issues, critically engage with underserved communities on issues of our times, and bridge cultures and generations through traditional music. 

In 2019, BMO was a headliner and provided workshops to 12,800 audience members for BridgeFest Vietnam, which aimed to foster dialogue surrounding diversity and equality.

Joel Davel, marimba lumina; Kai Echkardt, electric bass; Tunjie,  breakdance and contemporary ballet; Jimi Nakagawa, percussions  and taiko drums; Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, orchestra lead, zither, monochord, bamboo xylophone, lyrics, and vocals.