Blurring The Color Line...in the World of Taiko on 2/26/2023!
A special event on our world of taiko calendar!
BLURRING THE COLOR LINE WITH TAIKO: An afternoon of film, taiko, and ideas.
Event Highlight – Panel Discussion on Racialization and Asian Arts.
Sunday, Feb. 26th 2023 from 5-9pm ET (virtual tickets $20)
https://grandvision.org/event/blurring-the-color-line-film-taiko-performance
☆ Part of the Roots & Rambles concert series.
Why are Asian communities and cultures so often seen as perpetually foreign? Where did the Chinese sit on the bus during Jim Crow? Does taiko count as American music?
Join in an afternoon arts experience connecting these important questions about race, immigration, culture, and American-ness. This event, curated by taiko artists, allows us all to hear from filmmakers, performing artists, community leaders, educators, and ethnomusicologists, as they share their experiences and ideas. What happens when art forms are defanged, and how can we resist together?
Your tickets include:
A special documentary film screening of Blurring the Color Line: Chinese in the Segregated South, a film inspired by Crystal Kwok’s grandmother’s story about her family’s grocery store in Augusta, Georgia. Her family grew up in a Black neighborhood and they share stories about their personal experiences that expose the problematic, racialized system.
An exploration of the film’s sound & story, with Crystal Kwok (director, producer & writer) and ManMan Mui (composer of the film’s score), including audience Q&A.
A discussion on racialization and Asian arts, moderated by ethnomusicology professor Dr. Deborah Wong, with panelists from the taiko arts and Black, and Asian American communities. Activities will include an optional breakout session.
Community drumming and resistance, facilitated by ManMan Mui & Sasen Cain, taiko artists and educators.
Taiko performance by Mujō Dream Flight, contemporary taiko ensemble, plus special guests.
This event is offered in person and streamed live via Zoom to allow for all to participate.
About Taiko Drumming
“Taiko is a postwar tradition of Japanese drumming that is also Japanese American and Asian American. It is loud, physical, and powerfully expressive. It is a deeply mediated world music; it is both very old and quite contemporary; it is a fusion of different musical influences; it is folkloricized; and it is a global phenomenon, with approximately three hundred groups in North American and perhaps five thousand in Japan.” – Dr. Deborah Wong, Louder and Faster: Pain, Joy, and the Body Politic in Asian American Taiko(2019)
Click Here to Access the following: Program – Blurring the Color Line with Taiko
Greeting • Collective Breath + Kiai 氣合 + Yamaoroshi
Audience Participation led by Yeeman “ManMan” Mui + Sasen Cain
Documentary Screening - Blurring the Color Line Intermission (6:40 pm - 6:50 pm ET)
Sound & Story • Discussion with Film Creators
Crystal Kwok, producer & director Yeeman “ManMan” Mui, music & sound supervisor
Blurring the Color Line with Mujō Dream Flight
Live Performance
The Rhythm of BCL - We Play for Unity
Audience Participation led by Yeeman “ManMan” Mui + Sasen Cain
Panel Discussion on Racialization and Asian Arts
Moderated by Dr. Deborah Wong
Crystal Kwok, Yeeman “ManMan” Mui, Sasen Cain, Carrie Alita Carter, Brandi Waller-Pace Pre-recorded interview: Chizuko Endo
Why Does This Keep Happening?
Becoming Human
Live Performances
Community Drumming & Resistance (8:30 pm - 9 pm ET)
Songs of the Civil Rights Movement
Audience Participation led by Sasen Cain + Yeeman “ManMan” Mui
Blurring the Color Line with Mujō Dream Flight ft. Carrie Alita Carter
Composed and Arranged by Yeeman “ManMan” Mui
Performed by Mujō Dream Flight (Chris Phua, Maxyn Rose Leitner, Sasen Cain, Yeeman “ManMan” Mui) featuring Carrie Alita Carter
Why Does This Keep Happening?
Created and Performed by Carrie Alita Carter, Yeeman “ManMan” Mui, and Sasen Cain
Becoming Human
Composed by Sasen Cain with additional choreography by Maxyn Rose Leitner
Performed and Arranged by Mujō Dream Flight (Chris Phua, Maxyn Rose Leitner, Sasen Cain, Yeeman “ManMan” Mui) featuring Carrie Alita Carter
✧ Learn this open piece at http://tinyurl.com/learn-becoming-human
Workshop Songsheet
We Shall Overcome
https://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/216482943/the-inspiring-force-of-we-shall-overcome
Hemanga Biswas (Bangla lyrics), Girija Kumar Mathur (Hindi lyrics)
We shall overcome We shall overcome
We shall overcome someday
Oh, deep in my heart I do believe
We shall overcome someday
Lift Every Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson & J. Rosamond Johnson
Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Resources from Chizuko Endo
✧ "Growing up Japanese-American in Crenshaw and Leimert Park" from KCET
✧ Take Out With Lisa Ling, episode “Boyle Heights”, features Nobuko Miyamoto
Performers and Panelists Biography
About Yeeman “ManMan” Mui (they/them)
Yeeman “ManMan” Mui is a multidisciplinary taiko artist, dedicated to artistic expression to foster an inclusive, equitable, and creative community through multisensory expression and a mindful connection with one’s body. ManMan’s work in their early 20s with Hong Kong cinema was a pivotal moment in their career, driving toward an understanding of how soundscape composition opens avenues for authentic expression as Hong Kong Chinese and Neurodivergent. ManMan debuted as a taiko soundscape artist for
OTHELLO at Hawai’i Theater in 2016. Currently working as a Teaching Artist in Grand Vision’s Meet the Music Program, ManMan also teaches taiko drumming lessons at the Grand Annex, Los Angeles Taiko Institute, and Makoto Taiko. ManMan co-created a neurodiversity advocacy school program titled “Listening into Silence” with taiko artist Carrie Alita Carter under the name Actually Autistic Artists.
About Sasen Cain (pronouns: Sasen/Sasen’s)
Sasen is a scientist, artist, and educator who:
grew up in North Florida & Kolkata studying Bengali folk dance, semi-classical Bengali song & dance (Rabindranritya), Bharatnatyam, ballet, jazz, and modern dance.
joined the taiko community in 2008—in San Francisco, Boston, NYC, Providence, San Diego, and LA—working with many different styles, teachers, and directors.
has founded or co-directed several taiko groups with open membership policies.
founded or chaired both of the major gender justice organizations in the English-speaking taiko community, and has also advocated for trans/non-binary inclusion in higher education, STEM, and healthcare.
composes and choreographs, and uses those words interchangeably.
combines ideas and practices from dance, engineering, and brain & cognitive sciences to teach and to inspire strong practice habits.
uses Sasen‘s name as a pronoun: Sasen/Sasen/Sasen’s.
About Crystal Kwok (she/her)
Crystal Kwok is an award-winning filmmaker who established her career in Hong Kong as an actress, writer, director, and talk show host. As a strong women’s advocate, her talk show, “Kwoktalk” broke boundaries in Hong Kong with conversations about women and sexuality. Having moved back to the US, Kwok now embraces issues closer to home -- that of her Asian-American heritage. Kwok is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Hawaii in Performance
Studies and a recipient of the prestigious East West Center Scholar awards.
About Chizuko Endo (she/her)
Taiko Center of the Pacific Co-Founder & Managing Director, Instructor • Chizuko Endo has been playing taiko for over 40 years; first with the San Francisco Taiko Dojo, then Osuwa Taiko of Nagano, Oedo Sukeroku Taiko of Tokyo, and currently with the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble and Taiko Center of the Pacific. She has performed throughout the world with Oedo Sukeroku Taiko (Tokyo) and the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble.
She has studied classical and festival drumming styles of Japan as well as gagaku “Japanese Court Music,” serves as a taiko instructor specializing in the Sukeroku and Osuwa styles arranged for youth and adults, and is Managing Director of Taiko Center of the Pacific. Chizuko is also an Artistic Teaching Partner in Hawaii public schools. She has been in short term residency at such schools as Waiau Elementary School (ES), Waiahole ES, Waianae ES, Wailupe ES, Kaunakakai ES, Puohala ES, Linapuni ES, Maunalani ES, Lanai School, Niu Valley Intermediate School, Hawaii School for the Deaf and Blind, Molokai HS. She has offered a 5-week intensive course for grades 3-8 at Punahou Summer School for over 20 years. In 2016, she was honored with the inaugural “Distinguished Alumni” award from the University of Hawaii’s School of Pacific and Asian Studies Department. In 2017, she was honored, along with TCP co-founder Kenny Endo, with the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii’s “Sharing the Spirit of Aloha” award.
About Dr. Deborah Wong (she/her)
Deborah Wong is an ethnomusicologist and Professor of Music at the University of California, Riverside. Her most recent book is Louder and Faster: Pain, Joy, and the Body Politic in Asian American Taiko. She served as editor for Nobuko Miyamoto’s extraordinary memoir, Not Yo’ Butterfly: My Long Song of Relocation, Race, Love, and Revolution. Active in public sector work at the national, state, and local levels, in 2021 she joined the boards of the Chinese American Museum DC and Great Leap. Her happiest hours of the week are spent going on air with her weekly radio show Gold Mountain for KUCR 88.3 FM in Riverside.
About Carrie Alita Carter (pronouns: Carrie/Carrie’s)
Carrie Alita Carter is a globally acclaimed taiko artist and dancer whose original compositions are known for their dance-like choreography. Founder of All Things Taiko, the first online resource for learning taiko, Carrie also created the only taiko-specific body care program, JABS (Joint Mobility Alignment Balance Stability). While working toward an MPhil. in Ethnomusicology at The University of Hong Kong (2012), Carrie and ManMan Mui began envisioning Listening into Silence, now an interactive taiko show
that connects with students on topics of neurodiversity, language, race, gender, and communication. After 7 years in Japan, Carrie currently resides in Silver Spring, MD as a taiko educator, the Curator for School Culture and Inclusion at
The Springwell School, and owner and artist for Japan-inspired Etsy shop Kansai Treasures.
About Brandi Waller-Pace (she/they)
Brandi Waller-Pace is the Founder and Executive Director of Decolonizing the Music Room. She holds a Bachelor and Music of Music in Jazz Studies from Howard University and is pursuing a PhD in Music Education at the University of North Texas. An 11-year veteran general music educator, Brandi has also co-written district elementary music curriculum. In 2019 and 2020, she served on the Texas African American Studies Course Curriculum Advisory Team, which helped to formulate curriculum standards for the first
state-approved African American History course. She presents and speaks on many topics, including decolonizing and antiracist philosophies, Black roots music, and culturally relevant practices. After years of performing primarily jazz, neo-soul, and genre-crossing originals, Brandi found the banjo and roots music, opening a deep connection to traditions of her ancestors. She subsequently founded the Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival, which highlights blackness in American roots music.
About Mujō Dream Flight (MDF)
Members: Sasen Cain, Yeeman “ManMan” Mui, Maxyn Rose Leitner (fae/faer), Chris Tsang Phua 曾詠欣 (use Chris' name in lieu of a pronoun)
MDF is the artistic vehicle of founding taiko artists Sasen Cain, Yeeman “ManMan” Mui, and Maxyn Rose Leitner. Together, and in collaboration with other predominantly trans/non-binary taiko artists, they create both original works and traditional adaptations. MDF’s art centers dance and personal storytelling informed by their specific cultural backgrounds. In 2023, MDF is embarking on its inaugural tour, called “Haimweh” (Bavarian for homesickness), with the dual aims of highlighting trans/non-binary peoples' often-fraught connections with their hometowns & families, and a journey of retrieving the belongings of one of our members whose parents don’t accept faer transness, and reclaiming identity, belonging & inter-dependence. This tour is funded, in part, by the Taiko Community Alliance. Please contact us at us at mujodreamflight@gmail.com or via Instagram (@mujodreamflight) to donate or request performances.
Credits
Project Curator & Visioneer, Producer, Director: Yeeman “ManMan” Mui Project Curator & Visioneer, Producer: Sasen
Graphic Design: Yeeman “ManMan” Mui Video Editing: Sasen Cain
Zoom Operator & Attendant: Hia Phua (They/them)
Grand Vision Staff
Deputy Director & Artistic Director: Taran Schindler Marketing Specialist: Christa Klee
Community Projects/Team Taiko: Connie McOsker Lead Audio Engineer: Joel Mankey
Partially Funded by
TAAF (The Asian American Foundation) The National Endowment for the Arts
If you enjoyed this program and could comfortably contribute more, please consider donating at our Blurring the Color Line with Taiko fundraising page below. Join us in breaking the harmful “tradition” of unpaid and underpaid labor in the arts world. Because of the nature of this event, we intentionally chose to center artists and panelists who are all either people of color, trans/non-binary, or both.
Donate here: https://ko-fi.com/manmanmui