Marissa Osato
to peer through veils
SCREENING: June 1–30, 2021
PANEL: Thur. June 17, 7–8:30PM PT
with director/choreographer Marissa Osato & composer Sara Sithi-Amnuai; moderated by Scott Oshima
PANEL: Thur. June 17, 7–8:30PM PT
with director/choreographer Marissa Osato & composer Sara Sithi-Amnuai; moderated by Scott Oshima
This new site-specific dance film is an internal awakening to the shadows of history on the JACCC Plaza—specifically, the history of WWII-era Bronzeville.
In 1942, Executive Order 9066 forced over 120,000 Japanese Americans into incarceration camps. Nearly 80,000 Black migrants transformed the vacated Little Tokyo into a center for Black business, culture, and jazz. As WWII ended, the hopes for a Black and Japanese American “Little Bronze Tokyo” were never realized. Bronzeville presents a shared experience of structural racism and the potential power of solidarity between Black and Japanese American communities in Los Angeles.
to peer through veils investigates experiences of isolation and invisibility, shedding and assimilation, displacement and reclamation. Reckoning with the echoes of ancestral and societal history, how do we individually and collectively move forward?
In 1942, Executive Order 9066 forced over 120,000 Japanese Americans into incarceration camps. Nearly 80,000 Black migrants transformed the vacated Little Tokyo into a center for Black business, culture, and jazz. As WWII ended, the hopes for a Black and Japanese American “Little Bronze Tokyo” were never realized. Bronzeville presents a shared experience of structural racism and the potential power of solidarity between Black and Japanese American communities in Los Angeles.
to peer through veils investigates experiences of isolation and invisibility, shedding and assimilation, displacement and reclamation. Reckoning with the echoes of ancestral and societal history, how do we individually and collectively move forward?
Trailer
Official Selection of Visual Communications’
Asian Pacific Virtual Showcase 2021
During Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, join us for the Asian Pacific Virtual Showcase, which runs from May 1 - May 31, 2021 and aims to highlight Asian American & Pacific Islander artists of different communities and neighborhoods in the United States, Canada, and Oceania. Co-presented by Visual Communications and various partner organizations, we are pleased to bring you FREE films and conversations to keep us connected.
Learn more at vcmedia.org/apvs.
Learn more at vcmedia.org/apvs.
Meet Marissa Osato in Art is the New Normal
A Los Angeles native, Marissa Osato is a choreographer, director, and dance educator who creates emotionally-driven, embodied narratives through a sociocultural lens. Using a hybrid language of contemporary, modern, and hip hop dance techniques, Marissa’s choreography exhibits a sense of rhythm and dynamism, of groundedness and abandon, of stillness and intimacy.
Marissa is the co-founder/co-artistic director of Entity Contemporary Dance. Marissa earned an MFA in Choreography from California Institute of the Arts and a BA in Dance and BA in Literary Journalism from the University of California, Irvine.
Marissa is the co-founder/co-artistic director of Entity Contemporary Dance. Marissa earned an MFA in Choreography from California Institute of the Arts and a BA in Dance and BA in Literary Journalism from the University of California, Irvine.
Past Episodes
Episode 1: Hirokazu Kosaka, Oguri & Yuval Ron, In Between the Heartbeat
SCREENING: March 1–31, 2021
LIVE PANEL: Thursday, March 18 from 7–8:30pm PT
with Hirokazu Kosaka, Oguri & Yuval Ron; moderated by Scott Oshima
LIVE PANEL: Thursday, March 18 from 7–8:30pm PT
with Hirokazu Kosaka, Oguri & Yuval Ron; moderated by Scott Oshima
A special presentation of this 1998 performance from JACCC’s archive. In kyudo Japanese archery, the perfect shot is between heartbeats—immediate action without thought. JACCC Master Artist-in-Residence Hirokazu Kosaka brought his experience of immigration to life through a landscape of light and shadows, copy machines and electric blankets, bodies and arrows. A collaboration with choreographer Oguri and composer Yuval Ron.
Episode 2: Isak Immanuel & Marina Fukushima, Festival of Shadows
SCREENING: April 1–30, 2021
LIVE PANEL: Thursday, April 15 from 7–8:30pm PT
with Isak Immanuel, Marina Fukushima, Oguri, Nancy Uyemura & Sara Sithi-Amnuai; moderated by Hirokazu Kosaka & Scott Oshima
LIVE PANEL: Thursday, April 15 from 7–8:30pm PT
with Isak Immanuel, Marina Fukushima, Oguri, Nancy Uyemura & Sara Sithi-Amnuai; moderated by Hirokazu Kosaka & Scott Oshima
Meeting people, place, and shadow, the intergenerational performance Festival of Shadows is composed of a series of movement scores, video, and installations developed through local workshops and an inquiry into present and absent bodies. Delving into the ways in which displacement is often intimately interwoven with disembodiment, Festival of Shadows serves as a local process exploring the shifting layers of body, ground, borders, and an internal landscape. The performance is the culminating project from LTSC +LAB 2019 Artists in Residence, Marina Fukushima and Isak Immanuel with guest dancer Oguri, composer Sara Sithi-Amnuai, and a community ensemble.
A partnership with LTSC, JACCC, SLT. Funded in part by ArtPlace America.
A partnership with LTSC, JACCC, SLT. Funded in part by ArtPlace America.
Meet the Artists
Hirokazu Kosaka
Master Artist in Residence at JACCC
Hirokazu Kosaka is an ordained Shingon Buddhist priest and a master of the art of Japanese Kyudo (archery). After graduating from the Chouinard Art Institute in 1970, he continued to study the traditional and contemporary arts. He has received awards from the NEA, Rockefeller, New England foundation, Creative Capital, and US Artist Fellow. He has been actively advocating Japanese culture and art at the JACCC since 1983.
Oguri
Dancer & Choreographer
Oguri became inspired to dance after meeting Butoh founder Hijikata Tatsumi in 1983. He also practiced traditional organic farming, experiencing the rhythms and cycles of this most human lifestyle, and the connection of the human body to nature is a foundation of Oguri’s dance. After moving to Los Angeles in 1991, he founded Body Weather Laboratory LA with Roxanne Steinberg and went on to tour extensively internationally. He has received multiple awards and has taught dance all over the world.
Yuval Ron
World Music Artist and Composer
Yuval Ron is an award-winning composer and world music artist creating unique original film scores, music for contemporary dance, theater, museums, new media, medical and healing modalities as well as concerts, tours and recordings of the international renowned ethnic music and dance group The Yuval Ron Ensemble and music production company Yuval Ron Music.
Isak Immanuel & Marina Fukushima
Dancer and Choreographer
Isak Immanuel and Marina Fukushima have worked together on several uniquely composed intergenerational dance performances. Focused on local/global questions of place, family, community, and instability, projects have been researched and presented in the SF Bay Area and internationally, including at Headlands Center for the Arts, NOHspace, CounterPulse, Kinosaki International Art Center, and TPAM (Tokyo/Yokohama Performing Arts Meeting). In 2018, they developed the local ensemble collaboration “THINGS EVAPORATE – dances of sickness and health” as artist-in-residents in Beppu, Japan. In early 2020, the work “DRY EYES - place after image” was created as resident artists at Rogers Art Loft in Las Vegas. Amidst the COVID pandemic, an extended series of video performances/poem vignettes entitled “MAP OF SHADOWS” was created in collaboration with Surjit Nongmeikapam (based in Manipur, India) and presented by Attakkalari Centre for the Arts. Marina Fukushima was born in Tokyo and immigrated to the US in 1992. Specializing in Dance, she received a BFA from Butler University (2001) and an MFA from the University of Iowa (2005). Isak Immanuel grew up in Taos, New Mexico and East Los Angeles. He received a BFA in Interdisciplinary Practices from California College of the Arts (1999). He founded Tableau Stations, an intercultural arts platform, in 2004.