INFUSION, an interdisciplinary collaborative art project
Saturday, March 7, 2020 7:30 pm
J-Sei, 1285 66th Street, Emeryville
INFUSION is created to encourage intergenerational multi-disciplinary collaboration and dialogue among Japanese and Japanese American artists to explore their connection to Japanese culture, and to share the artists reflections. The project, curated by choreographer/Butoh artist Judith Kajiwara and visual artist Shari Arai DeBoer, brings together six artists with two distinct performances.
“Planting Our Stories”, a multidisciplinary performance of three narratives exploring Nikkei roots that merge into a multigenerational piece with dance, spoken word, and video. Keiko Allen is a traditional Japanese dancer and teacher who will share her journey from Japan to the US. Writer Steve Fujimura will explore the life of his mother as a Sansei born in camp. Visual artist Tina Kashiwagi will inquire into the life of her father growing up in the 1970s.
“Pilgrimage to the Self” Pilgrimages often travel to a place of memory or meaning, but their revelations ultimately serve to transform ourselves. Join us for a personal multimedia journey of healing and discovery with artists Tomo Hirai, Debby Kajiyama, and Tomoko Murakami.
The project is made possible through seed funding by the Henri and Tomoe Takahashi Charitable Foundation and proceeds donated by Ikeibi Films.
Suggested donation: $5 – $10
Limited seating. RSVP is required. Visit https://tinyurl.com/INFUSION-JA-arts
For more info, email jill@j-sei.org or call (510) 654-4000.
Artist Bios
Keiko Allen was born in Fukuoka Japan and came to the USA in 1972 with her husband John. She has raised three children, John, Kathy & Carol who all live in the Bay Area. In 2012, she retired from E I. DuPont chemical company as a sales representative in their automotive coatings division in Northern California. In 2014, Keiko received her Shihan dance certification in Tokyo, Japan. Soon after, she started her dance company, Hakata Kai, named after her hometown of Hakata City, located in the southern part of Kyushu island, Japan. Hakata Kai performs annually at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco and for community events. Keiko teaches Minyo no Odori, Japanese folk dance, at J-Sei.
Steve Fujimura is a poet and writer from San Jose, California. His work engages with memory, history, loss and family. He has participated in programs with The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, the Hweilan International Artist Workshop in Taiwan, and Kearny Street Workshop’s APAture festival. Steve earned an MA in creative writing at San Francisco State University. He lives in Berkeley, CA.
Tomo Hirai is most known for her work covering San Francisco’s Japanese American community as a reporter for the Nichi Bei Weekly and as a features editor for Anime Feminist. With a background in mass media and Japanese modern history, she writes on everything from local church bazaars to queer rights in Japan. She is also an editor and cultural sensitivity consultant for table top role playing games, notably Breakfast Cult and upcoming Hard Wired Island. When she’s not working, Tomo spends her free time dreading capitalism and obsessing over cats on the Internet.
Debby Kajiyama was born in California’s central valley, grew up in the walnut and cherry orchards of her grandparents’ farm and also spent several years living in Tokyo. Her interests lie in the intersection of social justice and performance. She is inspired by influential teachers Jenny Bitner (writing), Anne Bluethenthal (social practice); the movement research of Sara Shelton Mann, and the passion of the cultural workers of Oakland’s EastSide Arts Alliance.
Debby’s artistic practice includes an attention to story, objects in relation to the moving body; and the liminal state between the conscious-unconscious. In 2001, she co-founded NAKA Dance Theater with José Navarrete and together they have created nine full-evening programs. She has traveled to Cuba to share Obon Festival dances and music, and to conduct oral histories of the Japanese Diaspora there. Debby has been an artist-in-residence at Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Montalvo’s Lucas Artists Residency, and a recipient of an ACTA Apprenticeship to study tsuzumi with Jimi Nakagawa. She makes regular trips to the Tohoku Region in Japan to study Shishi-odori (Deer Dance) and participate in the Kozuchi Shrine Festival, a 400-year old, hyperlocal practice that has been used for healing after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. www.nkdancetheater.com
Tina Michiko Kashiwagi is a Japanese & Vietnamese interdisciplinary artist residing in Oakland, California. Tina’s creative process is often experimental and shifts between group collaborations and independent practice where she explores her own personal ancestry. She uses modern tools such as projection mapping, video and performance to tell stories of the past, present and future. Searching through her family archives, she aims to tell the forgotten narratives of people who have been oppressed throughout history.
Tina received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Art Education at San Francisco State University and contributes to the visual direction of the Oakland art collective, Macro Waves. Her work has been shown at SOMArts Cultural Center, the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, The San Francisco Arts Commission, The Growlery, Adobe Books Backroom Gallery, and Arc Gallery.
Tomoko Murakami was born in Yamaguchi prefecture in Japan, spent high school and college years in Tokyo and came to the U.S. for graduate study. Tomoko is passionate about exploring the medium of printmaking as a multidimensional art form, pushing the boundaries of traditional art and bringing attention to new possibilities in the mixed-media art world. She creates an interplay among space, light, and time through her unique style of art called Yusaifu. Her work involves video, performance, and installation, focusing on interconnections between two opposites such as dark and light, movement and stillness, reality and dream, life and death.
Tomoko received the Kala Art Institute fellowship in 1992. Her work has been exhibited at Gloria Delson Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles; Gallery on the Rim, San Francisco; Tomura Gallery, Tokyo; the Richmond Art Center, California; and Sebastopol Center for the Arts, California. Currently, she teaches at Santa Rosa Junior College and Kala Art Institute. Aside from teaching, she is an art conservator specialized in restoring artworks mainly from East Asia. She received her BFA from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music, MFA from San Francisco Art Institute, and MA from John F. Kennedy University. www.tomokomurakami.com