Travel Japan’s Countryside with Azusa – Part 3
Thursday, February 24, 3 pm

Our friend, inspired home chef, and creative innovator Azusa Oda has been journeying the Japanese countryside with her mom. Together, they have visited different inaka (rural countryside) communities in the Shikoku and Kyushu regions. In Part 2, we visited Kamiyama and discovered Somesho Irie, a natural dye studio, and the Kamiyama Artist in Residence that inspires hidden sculpture in the forest.

Join us for more conversation via ZOOM to hear about their travel to Itoshima and Arima in Kyushu. RSVP to jill@j-sei.org with “Azusa Travel” in the subject line.

Navigating With(out) Instruments

A Bay Area book event with traci kato-kiriyama

Saturday, March 12, 2 pm

“traci kato-kiriyama’s Navigating With(out) Instruments will expand your heart and spirit in all directions – in the marrow of your bones, deep into the earth, out into the streets, and into the stars and beyond where our collective radical imagination and our ancestors of past, present and future beckon us to listen more, ask more questions, stoke our hunger for justice, and love in ways that crack us open beyond what we believed possible.” Yumi Sakugawa; author of Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe

In Navigating With(out) Instruments, traci kato-kiriyama uses her present—political unrest, family love and loss, her own cancer diagnosis—to bridge the traumas of the past generations with the hope of the future ones. Often seamless, often with a loud bang, kato-kiriyama moves from genre to genre, from poetry to prose, essay to monologue to letters—framed by US colonialism and war mongering alongside the intimate navigation through memory, death, and transformation—to urge readers to protect and to share their legacies, both personal and communal, as a means of global survival.

Join us for an engaging and inspiring time at this Bay Area release celebration with traci kato kiriyama. The event is co-presented by Omusubi and J-Sei.

traci kato-kiriyama (they+she) is an award-winning multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary artist, recognized for their work as a writer, performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, and community organizer.

Join us for a hybrid book event with an online reading, followed by a Meet the Author book sales and signing to follow at J-Sei, 1285 66th Street, Emeryville (near Hollis St).

RSVP on Eventbrite for the ZOOM link.

HOPE & PEACE in 2022!

We invite you to a Virtual Oshogatsu Celebration, a special program with Claudine Naganuma to share her work with Dance with PD and their trip to Kyoto on Friday, January 28th, 1 pm

With more challenges to endure, we call on the Year of the Tiger to bring strength and determination to carry us through.

A special chirashi bento is available by pre-order for pick-up.  Suggested donation: $12  

To RSVP for ZOOM link, email jill@j-sei.org with “Hope & Peace” in subject line.

Peace About Life: Dancing with Parkinson’s

featuring Claudine Naganuma, artistic director of dNaga Dance Company

Friday, January  28, 2022 1 to 2pm PST

Celebrating 20 years with dNaga, artistic director Claudine Naganuma will share about the artistic process, art as a tool for healing, Dance for Parkinson’s and their performance at the World Parkinson’s Congress in Kyoto. Claudine will be joined by Cathy Wake Quides who will share reflections on Dance for PD and performing with dNaga in Japan.

For more information about Dance for PD® or dNaga visit dNaga.org

Photo by Solitaire Miguel, dancer Claudine Naganuma

Book Cover Photo by Matt Haber

Peace About Life, Support the Work

Peace About Life: Dancing with Parkinson’s, a book in both English and Japanese, offers first-hand accounts of struggling, thriving, re-defining identity, and finding peace while living with Parkinson’s disease. Claudine Naganuma, artistic director of dNaga Dance Company and certified Dance for PD® instructor, spent years interviewing dancers living with Parkinson’s disease, as well as some of their neurologists. The interviews were then taken into the studio to inspire and serve as audio for dance pieces.

The book is available for $20 with all proceeds to support Dance for PD free workshops.  Order the book below or make a donation to support dNaga Dance Co.