Asian and Asian American Arts and Cultures Program
The Asian and Asian American Arts and Culture Program is the nation’s longest-running university series dedicated to the performing arts and cultures of Asia and the Asian diaspora. It presents the living arts of Asia and the Asian American experience to foster cultural awareness, intercultural dialogue, and social justice. Through dance, music, theater, and interdisciplinary performance, the program honors traditional practices while highlighting contemporary narratives of identity, belonging, and resilience across Asia and the diaspora. It remains a cornerstone of the Fine Arts Center’s mission to celebrate the richness, diversity, and ongoing evolution of Asian and Asian American arts and culture.
Insun Park & Generals
Thursday, October 1, 8 p.m.
The Drake
Insun Park & Generals blend Korean traditional music with a mix of contemporary pop forms — notably rock, funk, and hip-hop — with Park adding elements of Gangnyeong Talchum (mask dance) to deliver a visually entrancing, musically engrossing stage show.
Ruby Ibarra
Thursday, November 5, 7:30 p.m.
Bowker Auditorium
Extraordinary Filipino American rapper Ruby Ibarra hits UMass with a band that includes pioneering guitarist (and western Massachusetts resident) June Millington! If you've seen the 2025 championship Tiny Desk concert, you know.
Yamato, the Drummers of Japan 2027 World Tour
Tamayura: Echoes of the Soul
Tamayura: Echoes of the Soul
Wednesday, February 10, 7 p.m.
Frederick C. Tillis Performance Hall
Yamato has been a leading force in Japanese taiko drumming for more than three decades. The troupe's performances incorporate more than forty taiko drums, ranging from the massive, stage dominating odaiko, to the hand-held shime-daiko.
Mary Prescott
Thursday, February 18, 8 p.m.
The Drake
Mary Prescott is a Thai American interdisciplinary artist, composer, and pianist. The new work Prescott will develop during a residency with the Fine Arts Center, is expected to take the form of an evening-length interdisciplinary performance involving music, movement, text, video, and installation.
Mythili Prakash
Jwala (Rising Flame)
Jwala (Rising Flame)
Thursday, March 25, 7:30 p.m.
Bowker Auditorium
Internationally renowned as a leading light of the Southern Indian classical dance form bharatanatyam, Mythili Prakash is celebrated for her innovative choreography and her powerful conviction as a dancer. In Jwala (Rising Flame), Prakash explores fire as a symbol of loss, hope, life, and death.
The Peking Acrobats
Sunday, April 4, 3 p.m.
Frederick C. Tillis Performance Hall
Special Sunday family matinee performance! Through breathtaking physical skill and theatrical staging, the Peking Acrobats bring centuries‑old Chinese traditions to life, pushing the limits of human ability and defying gravity with amazing displays of contortion, flexibility, and control.
News and Highlights
Hamed Sinno: Poems of Consumption
Hamed Sinno opened the Fine Arts Center’s Next50 series on October 9 with their newest song cycle, Poems of Consumption, an immersive, boundary-pushing performance that set the tone for a series devoted to artists reimagining their mediums. Known to many as the former frontperson for Mashrou’ Leila, Sinno, a Lebanese American, brought to the stage their evolving R&B-inflected compositions, lush string arrangements, live electronics, and brilliant multimedia visuals. Drawing from Amazon product reviews, Poems of Consumption transformed the language of consumer culture into a powerful commentary on surveillance capitalism, heartbreak, and Orientalism.
Lea Salonga: Stage, Screen & Everything In Between
One of Broadway’s biggest and most beloved stars delivered an extraordinary evening on December 4, drawing a packed house of fans from across the state. A native of the Philippines, where she got her start on stage at age seven, Salonga burst onto the international stage in 1989, winning multiple awards for her performance as Kim in Miss Saigon. From Broadway favorites to Disney classics and iconic pop hits, Salonga’s Stage, Screen & Everything In Between was pure joy.
Afong’s Room
Afong's Room grew out of collaborations among faculty, administrators, artists and students through lead support of the UMass Fine Arts Center Asian and Asian American Arts and Cultures Program (AAAACP) in collaboration with other UMass Amherst programs, including the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department, Office for Equity and Inclusion, and Asian/Asian American Certificate Program, as well as the Five College Asian/Pacific/American Studies Certificate Program.
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