Premiering at the 2014 Prismatic Arts Festival, Broken English Karaoke is an interactive performance installation that explores community, social anxieties, and the complexities of translation through karaoke culture. While karaoke pervades everyday life in many Asian countries, the presence of karaoke in North America is usually confined to aspiring celebrities and drinking culture. Adopting the platform of karaoke, and its myriad associations, this piece delves into the state of being lost in translation.

The performance uses a process of translating popular American songs to other languages, and then translating the words back to English, to expose a non-North American perspective where singing in community settings is more of a way to preserve culture and to voice an identity. Combining both North American and Asian associations with karaoke, the installation will be taking place in a functional bar and welcomes people of all backgrounds to get up and sing.

Stephanie Yee is a visual artist and writer originally from Barrie, Ontario, now based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Though beginning her academic career in theater, she graduated with a BFA from NSCAD in 2012. Her practice interrogates concepts of communication and identity. Using performance, video, sculpture and installation, she creates spaces where she and the audience can negotiate a work’s meaning together. This blurring of distinction between audience, artist and work stems from Yee’s radical re-contextualization of everyday details. She has exhibited around the Atlantic Provinces, Ontario, as well as New York City.