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Mia Park is an American TV show host, actress, drummer, and yoga instructor based in
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
. She is the long-time host of the children's dance show ''
Chic-a-Go-Go ''Chic-a-Go-Go'' is a public-access television cable television children's dance show that airs on Chicago Access Network Television (CAN-TV). The show bills itself as "Chicago's Dance Show for Kids of All Ages". Show description The show in ...
'', and co-founder of Chicago's A-Squared Theatre Workshop.


Early life and education

Mia Chan Mi Park was born in
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
. She attended
Shimer College Shimer Great Books School ( ) is a Classic_book#University_programs, Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, or ...
, graduating with distinction in 1995. Then located in
Waukegan, Illinois Waukegan ( ) is a city in Lake County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. Located north of Chicago, Waukegan is a satellite city within the greater Chicago metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, its population was 89,321, makin ...
and currently located in Chicago, Shimer is a
Great Books A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary or particularly noteworthy. What makes a book "classic" is a concern that has occurred to various authors ranging from Italo Calvino to Mark Twain and the related questions of "Why Read the Cl ...
college with a four-year core curriculum.


Performance career

Park is the host of the Chicago underground children's show ''
Chic-a-Go-Go ''Chic-a-Go-Go'' is a public-access television cable television children's dance show that airs on Chicago Access Network Television (CAN-TV). The show bills itself as "Chicago's Dance Show for Kids of All Ages". Show description The show in ...
'', "a dance show for kids of all ages". ''Lonely Planet'' described the show as "a kiddie version of ''Soul Train''." Reviews of the show frequently focus on Park's "deliriously chipper" style or "always-up rock-n-roll demeanor". She has hosted Chic-A-Go-Go since 1998. Her connection to ''Chic-a-Go-Go'' actually goes back to the very first show in 1996, when her then-boyfriend's band performed as the show's first musical guest, and she appeared as a dancer. Park, who typically moves rapidly from one project to another, has described the show as "the longest thing I've ever done in my life." As the host (or co-host, as the host is nominally hosted by the rat puppet Ratso), Park interviews the guest musical groups after their performances. In a 2012 ''Chicago Reader'' feature, she complained about having missed the opportunity to interview
Duran Duran Duran Duran () are an English pop rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor (bass guitarist), John Taylor. After several early changes, the band's line-up settled ...
due to a scheduling mixup; In August of the same year, however,
Nick Rhodes Nick Rhodes (born Nicholas James Bates; 8 June 1962) is an English keyboardist and producer, best known as a founding member and the keyboardist of the band Duran Duran. He has also been the only constant member of the group since their 1978 ...
of Duran Duran made good on their original promise. A drummer and percussionist, Park began performing in bands in 1995. Many of the bands in which she performs are all-female and/or all-Asian, including Kim (which she described as a "pop-rock, punk-out, all-female Asian band") and Pook Nury (a Korean female drum group). As of 2012, she was a percussionist for the all-female pop orchestra Girl Group Chicago. In 2001, she wrote of the challenges facing rock groups of this kind:
When I tell people that I am the drummer for an all-Asian American female rock band, I don't expect to be taken seriously. There aren't any other bands like Kim in Chicago, let along in america, so I don't expect the masses to comprehend that, YES, women rock, and that, YES, Asian American women also rock ... and we rock hard, dammit!
Park organizes an annual event of one-night-only female cover bands performing to benefit the homeless, called "Covers for Cover." Park is a co-founder of Chicago's A-Squared Theatre Workshop, the city's only pan-Asian theater troupe. She conceived of and appeared in the company's highly successful 2012 production ''My Asian Mom'', a series of eight short one-person plays by Asian performers about their mothers. Park's contribution, which dealt with her grandmother's escape from
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...
and also involved a lengthy handstand, attracted particular attention. Park is an advocate for
Asian American Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). Although this term had historically been used fo ...
representation in theatre. From the Chicago Sun-Times: "For decades, “Chicago Med” regular Mia Park has seen race used as an excuse for lazy or uninformed casting. On the one side, she constantly hears the refrain that Asian-American actors — whether their roots are in Hawaii or India or China or Pakistan — are hard to find. On the other edge, there’s the belief that they simply aren’t right for shows that don’t deal specifically with Asian storylines or characters. Park has a succinct response: “It’s all bulls—,” she said. “The talent base in Chicago alone is huge. And unless ethnicity or culture is specifically written into a character to help drive a story? There’s no reason you can’t cast someone who looks like me.” In 2006, Mia co-founded the Asian American theater company, A-Squared Theatre Workshop and ran the Chicago Asian American Acting Industry Group which hosted educational acting workshops and supported local Asian American talent. She currently runs the Our Perspective: Asian American Plays program.


Filmography


Film


Television


Shorts


Other activities

Park has worked as a yoga instructor since 2006.


Works cited

*


References


External links


Official site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Park, Mia Chanmi Living people Shimer College alumni Actresses from Philadelphia American public access television personalities American musicians of Korean descent American actresses of Korean descent American stage actresses American film actresses Drummers from Chicago American women drummers Actresses from Chicago American yoga teachers Educators from Pennsylvania American women educators Educators from Illinois Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women