Performed by and developed with Brock Bierly, Sharleen Chidiac, Keizo Fish, Rachel Jihye Han, Leah Hennessey, Laszlo Horvath, Liana Kurogi, Jurrell Lewis, Kara Lu, Emily Nunes, and Van To.

The latest iteration of the MOCA Focus series features the West Coast premiere of Diane Severin Nguyen’s new performance, WAR SONGS (2025/2026).

In her first live performance, Nguyen–together with Music Director Laszlo Horvath and a cast of ten performers–examines how images and media shape identity, power, and history. Debuting at the Performa 2025 Biennial in New York, the performance adopts the format of an anti–Vietnam War concert, reinterpreting protest music to explore how the aesthetic forms of past resistance movements generate cultural afterlives that continue to shape our contemporary moment.

By reworking anti-war anthems and populist folk songs, Nguyen refracts the sound of past resistance through the contemporary zeitgeist, questioning how nostalgia shapes current ideas of freedom, purity, and collective struggle.