By Mimi Chen, AsAmNews Staff Writer
The first NYC-based Asian American sketch comedy group, Model Majority, released a video, All By Ourselves, which parodies Celine Dion’s All by Myself in light of the quarantine. AsAmNews spoke with the founder of Model Majority, Veronica Dang, about the video.
AsAmNews: How did your comedy team get started?
VD: We first started performing a little over a year ago. I had always wanted to be on SNL and at the time there weren’t any regular cast members who are Asian American (so happy for Bowen Yang). I was surprised that I could not find any all Asian American sketch comedy teams in New York City and decided to start my own team – Model Majority. To test interest, I just put a single Facebook post looking for Asian Americans interested in writing and performing sketch comedy and was slammed with interest. Even to this day we have a wait-list of amazing talent wanting to join the team and we have been fortunate to sell out all our live shows so far, showing that there is a deep pool of interest in seeing very funny and talented Asian-Americans.
AsAmNews: Whose idea was the video and how did you get everyone together on it?
VD: I wrote and directed the video. Because of the quarantine I was feeling lonely and knew a lot of people were also feeling alone. I missed my team and making content with them. And I got tired of seeing quarantine videos with mainly White people. I asked my team members who wanted and had the tech ability to participate and several agreed to do it and sent in so much really good footage it was so hard to edit down. One of our team members who is now studying in London even participated! It was so nice to work with her again. Of course, the video was inspired by the wonder diva Celene Dion and the amazingly overly melodramatic video she created for All by Myself.
AsAmNews: Presumably you performed before the whole virus situation, what are your plans going forward?
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VD: We will continue to make videos and will be experimenting with our first virtual show May 9 for AAPI Month. We were supposed to perform that day live at The PIT in NYC for our second annual AAPI Month Show. If the May show goes well we will continue these online shows until we can perform in person again.
AsAmNews: And lastly, how is everyone doing and dealing with this?
VD: I can’t speak for everyone but most seem to be doing as well as can be expected due to this pandemic. Lot of sleeping, cooking, stress eating, cleaning, working/trying to find work and making/sharing content for themselves or with Model Majority.
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RE: Asian American comedy troupe releases quarantine video on YouTube: This is so reflective of my life right now. And so funny!