When traci kato-kiriyama reached out with an invitation to be a sound artist supporting their residency at the Japanese American National Museum in June – August 2019, I came up with a bunch of ideas. In part, I wanted to capture tra’s process of community building with the residents and neighbors in and around LA’s Little Tokyo. I also wanted to contribute music to the culmination performances around the historical and current theme of displacement and family separation.
I recorded at some the letterwriting workshops where tra read archival letters from Japanese American individuals incarcerated during WWII. These readings inspired community members to write letters of their own reflecting on their relationship to displacement. I made a mobile studio at the workshop and documented letters created during the workshops.
This collaboration culminated at a series of performances entitled Past Present: Conversations with Future, a performance-installation utilizing large-scale projections and soundscapes of letters of the past in conversation with the present.
I made a graphic score based on tra’s script and performed an improvised set on an amplified accordion, with Grace Umali on an amplified typewriter in the plaza in front of the museum in Little Tokyo.
More:
traci kato-kiriyama (website)
Program description
Credits:
traci kato-kiriyama: script, director, producer, choreographer
Umi Hsu: accordion, graphic score composition
Grace Umali: typewriter
Darren Mooko: photography
Steven Kemper: recording
Rounak Maiti: recording