KELLY TSAI
Award- winning Spoken Word Poet, Playwright, and Filmmaker
KELLY ZEN-YIE TSAI is a Brooklyn-based Chinese Taiwanese American spoken word poet, playwright, and filmmaker who has performed at over 500 venues worldwide including the White House and three seasons on Russell Simmons Presents HBO Def Poetry. A recent recipient of commissions and grants from New York Live Arts, Asian American Arts Alliance, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Asian Women’s Giving Circle, Tsai has been profiled on Idealist.org in NYC’s Top 40 New Yorkers Who Make Positive Social Change, AngryAsianMan.com’s 30 Most Influential Asian Americans Under 30, and HBO’s East of Main Street: Asians Aloud. Her work has been widely published in journals and anthologies like The Spoken Word Revolution Redux and We Don’t Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Wave of Feminists. Tsai has rocked stages at the House of Blues, Apollo Theater in Harlem, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Brooklyn Academy of Music. Past projects include her award-winning spoken word video (“By-Standing..”) and her viral spoken word video (“Black, White, Whatever” which was a Youtube.com Featured Video. Current projects include her spoken word theater ensemble show, “Say You Heard My Echo” and her spoken word dance solo show,
“Formosa.”