Happenings Archive

‘Jenevieve Chang is a natural storyteller, and her absorbing, bittersweet story – spanning China, Britain and Australia – about the difficult dances of family, marriage and identity, is told with grace, precision and unmatched elegance.’ Benjamin Law

Raised to be a ‘good girl’ in the claustrophobia of suburban Sydney, Jenevieve Chang has been running away for as long as she can remember. First from a childhood of demands and discipline, then a theatre world offering too few roles for Asian women; Jenevieve escapes to London and discovers its flourishing burlesque scene. Running then from her husband’s family, she lands in Shanghai where the ghosts of ancestors past loom large, forcing her to question how her family’s history of persecution and flight influences her search for identity and home

Join us for a special  cabaret-style author talk – with a storytelling performance inspired by Jenevieve’s book, The Good Girl of Chinatown.

Jenevieve Chang is a writer, performing artist and movement director with a career spanning Australia, the UK and China. She trained at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.In Australia, she has worked with Sidetrack Performance Group, Urban Theatre Projects, Legs on the Wall as well as Yellow Earth Theatre, the Young Vic and the National Theatre in the UK.

Between 2008-2011, Jenevieve lived and worked in Shanghai where she became part of China’s first Vaudeville, Variety and Burlesque club.

Returning to Australia, Jenevieve has worked at the National Institute of Dramatic Art and performed in Stories Then and Now, presented by Contemporary Asian Australian Performance (CAAP). Most recently, Jenevieve starred in Monkey Baa Theatre’s The Peasant Prince, the award-winning stage adaptation of Mao’s Last Dancer.

Jenevieve returned to China to take part in Australian Writer’s Week 2014 for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Bookworm Literary Festival. Her acclaimed memoir The Good Girl of Chinatown was published by Penguin Books in 2017.

Video link (ABC 7.30 Report): https://vimeo.com/218097594

The Bookworm hosts Beijing’s only classical music open-mic night. Get involved or simply bask in the glory of some of Beijing’s best international classical musicians. All the instruments are welcome!

Host: Rob Wendt

Rob Wendt has performed classical piano andchoral repertoire in New York City, London, Munich, and Italy. He currently resides and teaches music in Beijing, where he occasionally rocks out on guitar and bass.

Thursday, October 12th at 7:30 pm– FREE 

Registration Now OPEN !

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/basically-beethovenclassical-music-open-mic-tickets-38454316897?aff=es2

Join The Bookworm’s weekly SciFi Book Club to talk about your favorite science fiction short stories! Each meeting we choose a short story to read and discuss. Authors we’ve talked about so far include Greg Egan, Iain M. Banks, Cory Doctorow, Andy Weir, Liu Cixin, Peter Watts, Neal Stephenson, Ted Chiang, and many others. The club meets every Thursday at 8pm. Add Olga on WeChat @Merukaba for more information and this week’s reading!

FREE