In 1995, Brenda Aoki and
Mark Izu founded First Voice, a nonprofit arts organization whose mission is to
create, develop and present the stories and music of people living between
worlds. Critical to this mission is “personal experience” or “voice” as
essential to authentic contemporary global culture. Through First Voice, Brenda
and Mark together with their friends, continue to create music and stories
about people and lives that cross spiritual and cultural boundaries.
Aoki has broken barriers and established a new
artistic genre as a contemporary American writer and performer. Her work is a
synthesis of Japanese Noh and Kyogen theater, Commedia dell’arte, modern dance
and everyday experience.
About Japanese Ghosts:
In the Noh theater, the dead are more important
than the living because the actions of the dead are what brought us to where we
are today. Japanese ghosts are usually female ... Upset females. They are
portrayed without feet because they have lost their connection to the earth.
They are passionate women on a mission, so filled with love, jealousy or rage;
they won’t go peacefully to into the night.
Japanese believe ghosts are people who have died
with an unpaid On. On means “debt” or
“obligation,” but it is much more complicated. An On carries with it a
sacred vow that this debt be repaid. An unpaid on is passed down to your
children and to their children. The On begins to grow, like a
snowball into an avalanche with each successive generation. Until finally,
whole families, villages, countries live under the dark cloud of an unpaid On, because by then,
nobody knows what happened, who did it nor how to fix it. This is where
storytellers come in. We help people remember what happened in the past. Because
like autumn leaves falling year after year, people repeat the same mistakes,
follow the same patterns and create the same stories/histories over and over
again.
Love stories soften our hearts. Tales of wonder
awaken the awe in us. Heroes bring out the heroic in the listener and remind us
that one good person can change the world. Ghost stories remind us that the
only thing that remains after we are dead is the consequence of our actions.
Aoki and Izu had three releases in 2008.
“Mermaid Meat the Secret of Immortality” - a small picture book with CD
featuring full color wood block prints by Yoshitoshi “The Queen’s Garden”
(re-release INDIE Award for Best Spoken Word recording), and “Threading Time,”
acclaimed in Japan as “One of the Top 10 jazz recordings of 2008”.
For
more information, visit www.brendawongaoki.com.
The Japanese Cultural and Community Center of
Northern California is pleased to announce a lecture on how ancient Chinese
medicine can deter the flu and improve your immune system, featuring Dr. Hu
Naiwen, from noon to 2 p.m. Nov. 15 at the JCCCNC, 1840 Sutter St., San
Francisco.
Dr.
Hu Naiwen is a renowned Chinese physician at the Shanghai Tongde Chinese
Medicine Hall in Taipei City with more than 30 years of clinical experience in
traditional Chinese medicine. This lecture is free and open to the public. For
more information or to reserve your space, call (415) 567-5505. Space is
limited.
