AIRMW Livestream: Episode 09
Friends of Asian Improv aRts Midwest
Sunday, September 20, 2020
7:00 PM CDT
STREAM.AIRMW.ORG
Please join us for Episode 09.
Join us for the ninth installment of AIRMW Livestream featuring local, national, and international artists from the global AIRMW network. Featuring Japanese classical dance by Yuuka Shiratori (Tokyo), electronic music by Kiku Hibino (Chicago), Tsugaru Shamisen by Nobuto Yamanaka (Japan), Chromic Duo: Lucy Yao & Dorothy Chan (New York), pipa by Wu Man (China).
Yuuka Shiratori – Classical Japanese Dance
Grandmaster of Hanayagi School of Japanese Classical Dance, Leader of KAORUNOKAI, Chairman of the NPO SHIKUNSHI, Representative of the office YUI
Born in Kobe, Hyogo prefecture, Shiratori began her dancing career at the early age of three studying with the Hanayagi School of Japanese Classical Dance. As a young adult, she was admitted to the prestigious Takarazuka Music School as a top student of that year.
After dancing for the Takarazuka Revue, she received a Master’s License from Hanayagi School of Japanese Classical Dance. Since then she has been dancing and teaching traditional dance. She has performed and hosted workshops all over the world with appearances in venues including Washington DC, Minneapolis, New York, and Singapore. She hosts lectures, demonstrations, and performances inside and outside Japan for local businesses including etiquette class for traditional inns.
In 2005, she established NPO SHIKUNSHI, an organization to increase a sense of Japanese identity amongst Japanese citizens. Since then, she has worked as an activist who enriches people’s lives through Japanese traditional culture. This effort has become her new life work in addition to performing.
The main activities of NPO SHIKUNSHI include regularly hosting workshops of “Kimono Dressing and Graceful movement”, and offering classes for children, commissioned by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, about Japanese traditional cultures. SHIKUNSHI also holds classes, workshops, and seminars through Project WAMORI on Japanese culture including Sado (the tea ceremony), Rakugo (comic storytelling), Japanese Classical Dance, and kimono dressing.
In 2012, Hanayagi established a school called OUKASANJYUKU for Japanese women to learn and transmit the Japanese heart and soul to the next generation.
2014, She was awarded HIGASHI KUNINOMIYA Culture reward.
Kiku Hibino
Chicago-based and Japanese-born sound artist KIKÙ HIBINO has been producing cross-genre electronic music. From chamber music for media productions to digital micro sound for art installations, he has collaborated internationally with a wide variety of artists and scholars, including Kawaguchi Takao (Dumb Type), Curtis Roads, Theaster Gates, Mike Weis (Zelienople) and Norma Field.
His recent work “Radial Categories” explores the new horizon of house music by layering the multiple sounds and noise that have different rhythm structures.
The publication, The Wire once described his music as “trying to cram in as many memories as possible before it all disappears” and that the music “concerns itself with themes of capturing and preserving fleeting moments” (2007, issue 279).
He studied electronic music composition at the University of California at Santa Barbara under the mentorship of Curtis Roads and Karen Tanaka, and holds M.A. in media art and technology. B.A. in policy management from Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus in 2002, where he minored electronic music composition under the mentorship of Toru Iwatake, Atau Tanaka, and Christopher Penrose.
Nobuto Yamakaka – Tsugaru Shamisen
Nobuto Yamanaka is a Tsugaru shamisen musician who has been given an “A” rank three times at the Tsugaru Shamisen workld competition. Nobuto trained for four years in Hirosaki, a city in Aomori prefecture. He was only 15 years old when he started playing the Tsugaru shamisen. He trained as an apprentice of the world famous master Chisato Yamada during his four years he trained. He has performed in 36 countries worldwide.
Chromic Duo – Lucy Yao & Dorothy Chan
Chromic is an award-winning toy piano duo that brings new audiences together by creating new connections between classical music, electronics, and multimedia. Trained in piano, percussion, and contemporary practice, Chromic pushes the possibilities of genres and performance by reimagining canonical works, creating playful arrangements and commissioning new works that are transposable through digital and physical spaces. They are Dorothy Chan and Lucy Yao and are found at https://chromic.space.
Wu Man
Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and leading ambassador of Chinese music, Wu Man has carved out a career as a soloist, educator, and composer giving her lute-like instrument—which has a history of over 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. Through numerous concert tours she has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. Her adventurous spirit and virtuosity have led to collaborations across artistic disciplines, allowing her to reach wider audiences as she works to cross cultural and musical borders. Her efforts were recognized when she was named Musical America’s 2013 “Instrumentalist of the Year,” marking the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed on a player of a non-Western instrument.
Having been brought up in the Pudong School of pipa playing, one of the most prestigious classical styles of Imperial China, Ms. Wu is now recognized as an outstanding exponent of the traditional repertoire as well as a leading interpreter of contemporary pipa music by today’s most prominent composers such as Tan Dun, Philip Glass, the late Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, Bright Sheng, Chen Yi, and many others. She is a founding member of Silkaroad Ensemble and touring internationally. She was the recipient of The Bunting Fellowship at Harvard University in 1998, and was the first Chinese traditional musician to receive The United States Artist Fellowship in 2008. She is also the first artist from China to perform at the White House. Wu Man is a Visiting Professor at her alma mater the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and at the Xi’an Conservatory of Music, and a Distinguished Professor at the Zhejiang Conservatory in her hometown. She has also served as Artistic Director of the Xi’an Silk Road Music Festival at the Xi’an Conservatory.
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