Ferst Center for the Arts at the Georgia Institute of Technology
Saturday, September 16, 2023 | 4:30 and 8 p.m.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHER Yayoi Kambara
DIRECTED & CO-CREATED BY Yayoi Kambara and Brian Staufenbiel
COMPANY DANCERS & CO-CHOREOGRAPHERS
Rosie Dater-Merton, Kelly Del Rosario, PJ Hirabayashi, Jimmy Joyner, Sharon Kung, Maile Okamura, Leesha Zieber
TAIKO ARTIST PJ Hirabayashi
FEATURING
Poetry by Janice Mirikitani
Original Music by Paul Chihara, PJ Hirabayashi, Roy Hirabayashi
Ei Ja Nai Ka Music/Choreography by PJ Hirabayashi
Violin Musician Colin Jacobsen
Sound & Audio Design by Miles Lassi
Set Design by Weston Teruya
Costume Design by Maile Okamura
Lighting Design by Jack Beuttler
CREATIVE PRODUCER Courtney Ozaki
PRODUCTION MANAGER Jack Beuttler
KAMBARA+ REHEARSAL DIRECTOR Leesha Zieber
KAMBARA+ MANAGER Tiffany Schmidt
KAMBARA+ DESIGN Metalmark Partners
“I wanted to center the experience of Japanese Americans, not the institutions and governments history focuses on. I hope you feel the people who inspired this dance. In each section below, are my intentions, poetry by Janice Mirikitani, and musical notes.” -Yayoi Kambara
PRELUDE
An introduction of the characters amid American life. I hope you can feel their various jobs, from farmers and wives, to neighbors and students. This is a picture of prosperous Japanese American life. Poetry selection from Lullabye. Nana Shi from San Jose Taiko is one of my favorite pieces of 太鼓.
SURVEILLANCE
How was the United States able to orchestrate such a massive roundup in the midst of a world war? Even before Pearl Harbor, state surveillance traced JA's everyday lives. As the war tensions rose, the preparation for removal intensified, hidden behind the public vilification of JAs. This tension is embedded in the dancers' bodies.
PEARL HARBOR
Waves crash, and warplanes loom, the momentum cannot be stopped. How do individuals reckon with the packing of belongings with dignity, and how do neighbors help? Poetry from Prisons of Silence and Minidoka Tears composed by Paul Chihara and recorded by Colin Jacobsen - Violin.
TRAIN / ARRIVAL
An uncertain passage, how much longer, and where are we going? This section is inspired by an interview shared by James Yoshito Morioka when he recalled taking salt tabs on a long journey as a child to avoid dehydration. Poetry from Lullabye and Taken. Fue by Roy Hirabayashi.
CAMP LIFE
In trying to find new normals, how did JA’s reconcile with the daily terror of camp? Soldiers with guns, latrines, and barracks with no privacy. Yet, JA’s built schools, farmed uninhabitable lands, and recreated in sports and dances. In the drumming duet by PJ Hirabayashi and Miles Lassi, I was hoping to feel the distinct textures and tensions of the American military and Taiko drumming, as Taiko was also used as a war song in Japan - interview selection from James Yoshito Morikoka.
ATOMIC
Awa no uta sung by PJ Hirabayashi. Poetry selections from Being Here.
EI JA NAI KA
I learned Ei Ja Nai Ka an obon dance from PJ, while filming Out of the Dust, a dance film set in Manzanar. EJNK is a dance of gratitude and recognition of the 1st generation of JA immigrants. When we come into a circle and dance together, I see everyone. Dancing in a circle brings ideas, intentions, and power together - this is the movement. Please join us - drums: PJ Hirabayashi, poetry selections from Letters to My Daughter, and Prisons of Silence.
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Sound Design by Miles Lassi includes selections from San Jose Taiko's Kodama: Echoes of the Soul Celebration, Composed by PJ and Roy Hirabayashi, Nana Shi, Composed by Roy Hirabayashi, and Mo Ichido. Ei Ja Nai Ka, Composed by PJ Hirabayashi and Yoko Fujimoto, Logs and Haiku for Two Flutes, Minidoka Tears (IKKAI Commission), Composed by Paul Chihara.
KAMBARA+ recognizes we are dancing and creating performances in the unceded territories of the Mvskoke (Muscogee), who are the original inhabitants of Atlanta, Georgia. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Muscogee Community and by affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples. In addition, the removal of Native communities from their traditional territories and children from their families in the Indian residential school systems are examples of dispossession, dispersal, and genocidal assimilation, which continues to be employed as a government tactic. Japanese American incarceration was orchestrated by the same people who oversaw the bureau of Indian Affairs.
In acknowledgment of stolen land, we would be woefully remiss if we did not also acknowledge stolen people, enslaved Africans, that were kidnapped from their homelands and brought here to work these stolen lands. All of these acts - from the theft of land to the theft of human beings created this broken foundation of a country built on the backs of the oppressed. KAMBARA+ supports reparations for slavery.
BIOS
Yayoi Kambara (Artistic Director/Co-Director/Choreographer) (she/they)
has been a Bay Area dance artist since 2000. Kambara was a company member with ODC/Dance from 2003 to 2015 and danced as a freelance artist with numerous Bay Area dance companies. She was the rehearsal director for AXIS Dance Company during Judith Smith's sabbatical for AXIS Dance Company in Oakland, California. Kambara was a cohort member in the 4th APAP (Association of Performing Arts Professionals) Leadership Fellows Program. Kambara is also a co-interrogator with Dancing Around Race (DAR) to champion a spectrum of aesthetic perspectives, creating conditions for BIPOC artists and communities to thrive, while confronting systemic racism by analyzing how race affects the production, curation, and funding of dance. In 2019 Kambara led Aesthetic Shift, a year-long Community Engagement Residency for Bridge Live Arts. Kambara currently choreographs and creates staging for Opera Parallèle and other chamber opera companies. She recently received her M.F.A from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as an Alex Dubé scholarship awardee under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield and Dr. Thomas F. DeFrantz.
KAMBARA+ was founded in 2015 as a vehicle to produce Kambara’s choreography, focusing on creating dance performance experiences that cultivate a sense of belonging. She focuses her choreography on diverse cultural, economic, and ethnic differences by creating space for empathy and dialogue. Currently, Yayoi Kambara, administrator Tiffany Schmidt, and a small board are working on becoming a not-for-profit organization.
Rosie Dater-Merton (Performer) (she/her) is an Asian American dance artist based in the Bay Area. She grew up in Vermont where she danced at her local studio and attended many dance intensive programs around the country. She graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy and then moved to California and completed the Alonzo King LINES/Dominican University BFA program. In addition to being a freelance dancer Rosie is a teaching artist for the HeART with LINES community program and a rock climbing instructor. In the future she looks forward to becoming more involved in the Bay Area dance community, and finding a path in dance outreach.
Kelly Del Rosario (Performer) (he/him) was born and raised in Mililani, Hawaii. He received his BFA in Dance Performance at the University of Hawaii and upon graduation, moved to San Francisco where he has worked with various Bay Area artists including Sarah Bush Dance Project, Robert Moses' KIN, Project.b, RAWdance, and the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company.
PJ Hirabayashi (Performer, Taiko Artist) (she/her) is a pioneer of Taiko (Japanese drum) in North America for 50-years. She has received numerous commendations as a community-builder, cultural bearer of taiko, and a catalyst in amplifying the visibility, preservation, and vitality of San Jose Japantown. Her involvement in the 1970’s social rights movements, has defined her values in activism through cultural expression. PJ and her husband, Roy, received the 2011 NEA National Heritage Fellowship in Folk and Traditional Arts for their work in taiko. She is the founder of “TaikoPeace” (PEACE=Partnerships, Empathy, And Creative Empowerment)—to foster cooperative networking, social justice, and creativity.
Jimmy Joyner (Performer) is an Atlanta based dancer, teacher, creator, and supporter of fellow artists. Jimmy is interested in the intrinsic healing quality of performance. Jimmy is a 200 hour certified yoga instructor, a Distinguished Fellow with Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences, the wardrobe supervisor for staibDANCE, a 2020 MINT Studio Artist, a cofounder of Nashville Design House, and a team member with Fly on a Wall, a platform for innovative performance that supports artists working in the realm of performance. Jimmy has danced with Nashville Ballet, Wonderbound, glo, and staibDANCE. Jimmy’s work encompasses movement, “ process as performance”, “ creature creation”, and world building.
Sharon Kung (Performer) was born in New York, and currently resides in the San Francisco bay area. She received her early training at the Jean M Wong School of Ballet in Hong Kong, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of California, Irvine with a BFA in Dance Performance and BA in Economics. Her repertory includes works by George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Bob Fosse, José Limon, Graham Lustig, Dexandro “D” Montalvo, Robert Moses, Donald McKayle, Crystal Pite, and Amy Seiwert. She is thrilled to return performing with KAMBARA+ this season.
Janice Mirikitani (Poet)(1942-2021) was an award-winning poet, dancer, activist and educator who with her parents, she was incarcerated in an Arkansas concentration camp with the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.I. Through her poetry and activism she was internationally known and respected for her work towards civil rights causes for various multi-ethnic communities including the struggle for redress for Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII. She authored five books of poetry and was the editor of nine landmark anthologies for writers of color, women, youth, and children. From 2000-02, Mirikitani was appointed to serve as the Poet Laureate of the city of San Francisco.
Maile Okamura (Performer) (she/her) is a yonsei Japanese American dancer. She studied ballet at American Ballet School in San Diego and at San Francisco Ballet School. She danced with Boston Ballet II, Ballet Arizona, and for over 20 years with Mark Morris Dance Group. She lives in NYC and currently dances with Pam Tanowitz Dance and Dance Heginbotham. Maile also designs and constructs costumes for dance and opera and is a content specialist at the Mark Morris Dance Group Archives.
Leesha Zieber (Performer/Rehearsal Director) (they/them) is a white-passing QTPOC dance artist based in San Francisco. They grew up moving and grooving in Santa Cruz before graduating summa cum laude from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in dance and mathematics. Leesha has enjoyed working with KAMBARA+ since 2016, and has also had the privilege of working with ayanadancearts and Dance Brigade among others.
Brian Staufenbiel (Co-Director) (he/him) is the creative director and stage director for Opera Parallèle and specializes in multimedia, immersive, and interdisciplinary productions. He actively works across a wide range of artistic disciplines collaborating with film and media designers, choreographers and dancers, circus and fabric artists, and designer fabricators.
Jack Beuttler (Production Manager/Lighting Designer) is an Oakland based designer and producer. His work has appeared with ODC, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, LEVYdance, and Dance Theatre SF, and in 2019 he had the honor to receive the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design for Flyaway’s The Wait Room. He’s the Director of Production for ODC as well as the Sun Valley Music Festival in Idaho. In 2021 Jack produced the acclaimed feature film Goodbye, Mr Chips.
Paul Chihara (Composer) is a renowned Japanese-American composer who spent part of his chilidhood in incarceration with his family in Minidoka, Idaho during WWII. His 60-year career as a prize winning composer includes widely performed concert works which are concerned with the evolution and expression of highly contrasting colors, textures, and emotional levels, include symphonies, concertos, chamber music, choral compositions, ballets, film and TV scores. Born in Seattle in 1938, Chihara received his D.M.A. from Cornell University in 1965. In addition to studying with Robert Palmer at Cornell, his principal teachers were Nadia Boulanger in Paris (where he won the Lili Boulanger Memorial Award), Ernst Pepping in Berlin, and Gunther Schuller in Tanglewood. He was the founder and chairman of the UCLA Visual Media graduate program, which is devoted to training composers for film, Broadway musicals, and/or the concert stage, and he is an adjunct professor at UCLA and NYU.
Miles Lassi (Sound Designer) is a percussionist/audio engineer/composer based in Oakland, CA. He has performed in over 150 cities throughout North America, Europe and Asia with many different ensembles ranging from the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall to the national tour of Dirty Dancing. He has also worked with Grammy award winning producers Om'Mas Keith, Corte Ellis, Jack Vad and Tony award winner Peter Schneider. In the dance field, Miles has collaborated with many various companies in the Bay Area.
Weston Teruya (Set Designer) is a visual artist who moves between individual and collective modes of practice. His work has been exhibited at Mills College Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa; and supported by Artadia, Asian Cultural Council, and Headlands Center for the Arts. His collaborative work primarily manifests through Related Tactics, a collective of artists of color who create projects at the intersection of race and culture. Their work has been supported by Craft Research Fund, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Kala Art Institute’s Print Public, and Montalvo Arts Center. westonteruya.com
Courtney Ozaki (she/her) is an independent creative producer and founder of the Japanese Arts Network, a national resource supporting Japanese Artists in America. She holds an MFA in Performing Arts Management from Brooklyn College and helped develop new dance works with Joyce Theater Productions in NYC. In 2022 she premiered an original production, ZOTTO: A Japanese Supernatural Immersive Folktale in CO. Courtney serves on the Western Arts Alliance Board, is a Governor Appointee to the Scientific Cultural Facilities District Board in Colorado, and is an organizing committee member of the Creative Independent Producers’ Alliance.
Tiffany Schmidt (KAMBARA+ Manager) (she/her) is thrilled to be supporting KAMBARA+ as an arts administrator and grant writer for the past two years. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts in Dance with a Business Cognate in 2020 from the University of Akron, she interned with the National Center for Choreography in Akron, Ohio. She has also worked for Verb Ballet and University of Akron Dance Institute and danced in productions by Neos Dance Theater, trideaDANCE, and Terpsichore Dance Club. Tiffany lives in Dayton, Ohio and is a passionate advocate for the arts.
SPECIAL THANKS
I am deeply grateful to the Ikeda family, who shared their story and inspired this dance and research. I am grateful to the Japanese American families and parents who have helped me understand how to be an American. Thank you, Paul Chihara, PJ Hirabayashi, Denise Ikeda, Norman Fumiyo Ikeda, Peggy Ikeda, Satsuki Ina, Dana Kawano, Janice Mirikitani, Dr. Katherine Morioka, James Yoshito Morioka, Nobuko Miyamoto, Kimi Okada, Thomas Oshidari, Courtney Ozaki, Miya Sommers, Sharon Uyeda and Lani and Dr. Yamanaka. Thank you, Thomas Walsh, Marvin White, Betty Wong, and the Glide Family, for giving me an opportunity to belong. Thank you, Brian Staufenbiel, for believing in this project, traveling to Manzanar, and continuing our artistic work during a pandemic. Jaime Cortez, thank you for encouraging me to dream. Thank you to Georgia Tech Arts - Nathalie Matychak, Kara J. Wade, Dorcas Ford Jones, Paul Cottongim, Justin Camp, Joe Davis, and Jenna Thiel.
Special thanks to our commissioners, the San Jose Japanese American Citizens League, for taking a risk and encouraging me through every success and disappointment in this process. I am grateful for your support. Dearest IKKAI artist collaborators, advisory and administrative team: my deepest gratitude for your patience and generosity in this process.
— Yayoi Kambara
IKKAI means once: a transplanted pilgrimage is commissioned by the Japanese American Citizens League San Jose Chapter and funded by William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Japanese American Citizens League Northern California Western Nevada Pacific District, San Francisco Arts Commission, Dancers’ Group’s CA$H Dance, Fleishhacker Foundation, and Zellerbach Family Foundation.