http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/events daily 0.75 2015-05-28 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/events/2015/4/25/cultures-of-resilience monthly 0.5 2015-04-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427842906021-NPV4ZI81MPFLFKNM4MCC/image-asset.jpeg Events - Cultures of Resilience http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/events/2015/4/8/art-installation monthly 0.5 2015-04-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1426557032066-3H2BIEIBIFHJS7HSMOQX/nancy-hom-mandala.jpg Events - Japantown Mandala and Multimedia Arts Installation http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/events/2015/5/9/walk-through-time monthly 0.5 2015-05-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1429307249019-5RH8YDGC89BDRG6BSCBW/image-asset.jpeg Events - A Walk Through Time https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1429303246329-Q5ZJUGWWHFATNDCRVCUO/a+walk+through+time+banner+image.jpg Events - A Walk Through Time http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog daily 0.75 2015-04-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428898855815-U12Y7S35BS7IST9ENNMV/banner+copy.jpeg Blog http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/4/23/moving-through-suite-j-town monthly 0.5 2015-04-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1429816159302-PNFFXFJ82E3FQI4ARMTP/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Moving Through Suite J-Town Brenda filling in the 'Daruma' 's left eye. Traditionally you wish or pray while filling it, and when you've achieved it you fill in the right eye. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1429815903903-D82VSM3OHNEAT09QACDG/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Moving Through Suite J-Town Movement Exercise with Seniors http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/4/13/nancy-hom-artist-statement-on-the-japantown-mandala monthly 0.5 2015-04-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428951795353-9BYFHCPEZFJ4PD0815QL/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Nancy Hom Artist Statement on the Japantown Mandala https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428951668794-2L6XZ0MY6J51MEQX3H0H/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Nancy Hom Artist Statement on the Japantown Mandala Nancy Hom and Brenda Wong Aoki http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/4/13/brenda-wong-aoki-artist-statement monthly 0.5 2015-04-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428951218149-50MQCGY5UHZB6OKGZ8MZ/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Brenda Wong Aoki Artist Statement http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/4/12/our-sweet-suite-jtown-opening monthly 0.5 2015-04-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428897594431-OHXT96YU68A0046ESGKS/glitter.jpg Blog - Our Sweet, Suite-Jtown Opening! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428897610450-ERZ7NBEFWK4OQU8IDLXY/jizo.jpg Blog - Our Sweet, Suite-Jtown Opening! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428897632857-A25FK2BCWSY0X3Z5G093/pagoda.jpg Blog - Our Sweet, Suite-Jtown Opening! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428898139705-IJFR6VC73KSUZAC13CAB/video.jpg Blog - Our Sweet, Suite-Jtown Opening! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428897255711-WOURYBJ1E1L6BG2LL68Z/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Our Sweet, Suite-Jtown Opening! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428897493073-HWLXS0OXUKK8SIHOKHAA/blessing.jpg Blog - Our Sweet, Suite-Jtown Opening! http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/4/8/building-synergy-the-process-of-collective-effervescence monthly 0.5 2015-04-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428517422554-XSKM8DARXICKESEDBV23/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Building Synergy: The Process of Collective Effervescence Silly photo of Charlene, Ayana, Eryn, and Jill working on the community collaborator cards. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428517488062-8J1QT6N92A3BSJ22S9EB/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Building Synergy: The Process of Collective Effervescence Charlene (left) and Elena posing with cotton candy boba outside Suite J-town gallery space. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428517615264-4CEDO36ACWNZVGOR6T2G/image+%281%29.jpeg Blog - Building Synergy: The Process of Collective Effervescence My surprise Birthday Pie! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428517213834-0JABXBVK74MMPXB9AGDZ/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Building Synergy: The Process of Collective Effervescence Elena Harumi Nielsen: "We all carry our feelings of cultural pride inside ourselves individually but there is some mysterious thing about being able to travel, to pilgrimage to a place that epitomizes those feelings through its history, which allows us to bask in the parts of ourselves that do not always get to be expressed in our day-to-day routine" https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428517794041-WLD22TMXKX8TM1WL57Z4/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Building Synergy: The Process of Collective Effervescence Hand-made thank you cards and invitations to community collaborators. http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/3/30/sm17gjxzw1ip7oy5ai4xlk3p0uzo3j monthly 0.5 2015-03-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427768493375-D4G9TFMTLR3YGAX6E70J/Celi_4.jpg Blog - "Reclaiming Who We Are": Attending a Sermon at Pine Methodist Church https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427768493415-FNX799Q6YQFWUPKXOBTB/Celi_5.jpg Blog - "Reclaiming Who We Are": Attending a Sermon at Pine Methodist Church https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427768498297-R6WAXBRSW6V7KLOSIVP8/heartmatured.jpg Blog - "Reclaiming Who We Are": Attending a Sermon at Pine Methodist Church https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427767922916-03D9MLMK2452Z1XJKVA8/image-asset.png Blog - "Reclaiming Who We Are": Attending a Sermon at Pine Methodist Church https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427768765567-T3279W1N1L4YRDIEZU8Q/image-asset.png Blog - "Reclaiming Who We Are": Attending a Sermon at Pine Methodist Church J-Tell Celi Tamayo-Lee: "I am a child and descendant of farmers, businessmen and women, community hosts and caretakers, laborers, cooks, (im)migrants, homemakers, midwives, and artists. I am from an urban generation that has grown up in the polycultural intersections of public schools, cross-town bus rides, chronic after school activities and vibrant summer camps." http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/3/27/849uwtblfblymtuqpw6vp2ph2x5sty monthly 0.5 2015-03-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427499995169-J5OGYLR62F2TGDQFJUT3/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Eryn Kimura: Going Back Back, To Jay Cee Why Cee (JCYC)!! J-Tell Eryn Kimura tells her story about going back to her old hood and teaching youth about the 150 year history of Japantown! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427500372535-UHPHCSCOILJWMYPFAO9P/image-asset.png Blog - Eryn Kimura: Going Back Back, To Jay Cee Why Cee (JCYC)!! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427499582797-1510M0R6QH5C90SDRT0N/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Eryn Kimura: Going Back Back, To Jay Cee Why Cee (JCYC)!! Geary east from Baker and St. Joseph, 1958 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427499042153-K512Q5JF21TK9RHMGJMW/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Eryn Kimura: Going Back Back, To Jay Cee Why Cee (JCYC)!! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427500405991-D1NLO3LEKOFIXEZYF37D/yearbook.png Blog - Eryn Kimura: Going Back Back, To Jay Cee Why Cee (JCYC)!! Morning Star School, class of 1955! http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/3/22/spending-time-with-our-elders-at-kimochi-home monthly 0.5 2015-03-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427063314049-DTOU5TCI990CRF0MYOY4/kimochi+home+hands.jpg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427063308041-OO2691CIEF8LDCH7I0O8/suite-jtown-first-voice-kimochi-inc-japantown-community-seniors.jpg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427063325593-HU91C2PI3TMFB6QV6W7Z/IMG_0874.jpg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427063338980-6T383CII6XTWZVL34TZA/IMG_0891.jpg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427063349838-6V6PE30C9F6JCD7CL1BL/IMG_0894.jpg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427063355675-V4YXG08KFRKU9QO53WPC/IMG_0895.jpg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427063436577-FS7RN9OT5ZVAO5NSCVOO/IMG_0848.jpg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427063442670-Q63R6AM9409X8D9PYDLV/IMG_0849.jpg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427062676741-101I11WVG1D8RS9KJI75/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427063476244-AORXGUG4DWE2WO5HSI30/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Spending Time with Our Elders at Kimochi Home http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/3/5/a-busy-day-in-j-town monthly 0.5 2015-03-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425592637889-DMFPT7HKRVH33O770QSJ/image-asset.jpeg Blog - A Busy Day in J-Town Hinamatusuri (Girls' Day) at Konko-Kyo Church. The Japanese Doll Festival (Hinamatsuri), or Girls' Day, is a festival celebrated by families who have girls, wishing their daughters good health and growth. Traditionally, beautiful dolls representing the emperor, empress, attendants, and musicians were handcrafted especially for the occasion. The custom of displaying dolls began during the Heian period, when people believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425592416334-57LKKZ4POAONCDD7H2L6/image-asset.jpeg Blog - A Busy Day in J-Town Kokoro Assisted Living for Seniors https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425592557311-QLL7630CQCE7XU5CFFFV/image-asset.jpeg Blog - A Busy Day in J-Town Konkyo Church https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425593674327-FDU0UKVKI7SS6VUHQTUK/suitejtown_charlene_kelley_jtell_glitter_artist.jpg Blog - A Busy Day in J-Town https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425592700021-75WPG272G84DJJ2P9B2G/image-asset.jpeg Blog - A Busy Day in J-Town JACL National Headquarters- a venue for the Walk Through Time http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/3/2/making-little-friends monthly 0.5 2015-03-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425314397426-TR03XT5YCWQ1EA840TDU/10420341_10205160899437608_8113456062631150243_n.jpg Blog - Making Little Friends Paper dolls, designed by Charlene, drawn and decorated by the Little Friends! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425314424114-W7DXWVNU6V02Z23LIAFA/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Making Little Friends Ayana leading the kids in a movement exercise! http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/2/23/films-of-remembrance-a-poignant-experience monthly 0.5 2015-02-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424754050302-KE46Q9D96AFLL0MLX0JJ/2014_Films-Of-Remembrance_Logo-CROPPED-FOR-WEB-300x95.jpg Blog - Films of Remembrance :: A Poignant Experience http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/1/30/j-tells monthly 0.5 2015-02-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424752944597-WZYY5168Z0OFT0HDMO58/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Meet our new J-Tells! J-Tells and Creators - All Smiles! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424752875629-2ECCFB4ITGZFUJ3XSTFU/IMG_9568.jpeg Blog - Meet our new J-Tells! J-Tell Welcome Dinner https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424752653503-ZC2MWG3EGZZGUOD1OHD4/image-asset.png Blog - Meet our new J-Tells! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424752851438-OMPZCHPQCTEPGXABUOJZ/IMG_9559.jpeg Blog - Meet our new J-Tells! J-Tell Birthday Cake! http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/1/30/suite-j-town-receives-funding-from-the-california-arts-council monthly 0.5 2015-02-08 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/2015/1/30/artist-nancy-hom-to-collaborate-on-suite-j-town monthly 0.5 2015-02-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1422649891735-YPN3NAAQ0XKNMOHE2QYI/nancy_headshot-0018sm.jpg Blog - Nancy Hom commissioned to create Mandala for Suite J-Town http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/category/News monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/category/J-Tells monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/category/Community monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/Nihonmachi+Little+Friends monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/mandala monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/Japantown monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/nancy+hom monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/creative+california+communities monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/bay+area monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/community monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/j-tells monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/california+arts+council monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/japantown monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/suite+jtown monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/arts+funding monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/arts monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/san+francisco monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/blog/tag/kimochi monthly 0.5 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/performer-bios daily 0.75 2015-05-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427483751559-XZPRF0KIIUJL8G5TOP4F/kenny-endo-suite-jtown-first-voice.jpg Performer Bios - Kenny Endo, Taiko One of the leading personas in contemporary percussion and rhythm, KENNY ENDO is at the vanguard of the taiko genre, continuing to carve new territory in this Japanese style of drumming. A performer, composer, and teacher of taiko, he has received numerous awards and accolades, including very special recognition in Japan—he was the first foreigner to be honored with a “natori,” a stage name, in Japanese classical drumming. Kenny Endo was a featured artist on the PBS special “Spirit of Taiko” in 2005. He has performed for such musicians as the late Michael Jackson and Prince, opened for The Who, performed a duet with singer Bobby McFerrin, and is featured on the soundtracks for Kayo Hatta’s film “Picture Bride”, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”, and recently worked on James Cameron’s “Avatar”. He has had a day named for him in by the Mayor of Honolulu “Kenny Endo Day”, and was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts for American Masterpieces. He has released 8 CDs of original music. Kenny is a consummate artist, blending Japanese taiko with rhythms influenced by his jazz background and by collaborations with artists from around the world. Kenny's taiko are provided courtesy of Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten. www.kennyendo.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427483751559-XZPRF0KIIUJL8G5TOP4F/kenny-endo-suite-jtown-first-voice.jpg Performer Bios - Kenny Endo, Taiko One of the leading personas in contemporary percussion and rhythm, KENNY ENDO is at the vanguard of the taiko genre, continuing to carve new territory in this Japanese style of drumming. A performer, composer, and teacher of taiko, he has received numerous awards and accolades, including very special recognition in Japan—he was the first foreigner to be honored with a “natori,” a stage name, in Japanese classical drumming. Kenny Endo was a featured artist on the PBS special “Spirit of Taiko” in 2005. He has performed for such musicians as the late Michael Jackson and Prince, opened for The Who, performed a duet with singer Bobby McFerrin, and is featured on the soundtracks for Kayo Hatta’s film “Picture Bride”, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”, and recently worked on James Cameron’s “Avatar”. He has had a day named for him in by the Mayor of Honolulu “Kenny Endo Day”, and was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts for American Masterpieces. He has released 8 CDs of original music. Kenny is a consummate artist, blending Japanese taiko with rhythms influenced by his jazz background and by collaborations with artists from around the world. Kenny's taiko are provided courtesy of Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten. www.kennyendo.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427488687233-FBBWO82PF3VMZSWXM6UX/image-asset.jpeg Performer Bios - Moy Eng, Vocals Moy Eng is a singer and lyricist. Known for her “beautiful and soulful voice,” Moy has performed with wonderful artists including Anthony Brown, John Stowell, Jon Jang, Steve Nakano, Paul Eastburn, and Bill Murphy. As a lyricist, she collaborates with composer, Wayne Wallace. Moy is honored and thrilled to be working again with First Voice.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427859762052-MS2E42WSFBSUZ5C9D6AO/shoko-hikage-koto-suite-jtown-first-voice.jpg Performer Bios - Shoko Hikage, Koto/Vocals Shoko Hikage began playing koto at the age of three. Her first teacher was Chizuga Kimura of the Ikuta-ryu Sokyoku Seigen Kai in Akita Prefecture, Japan. From 1985, she received special training from the 2nd and 3rd IEMOTO Seiga Adachi (hereditary head master of the Ikuta-ryu Sokyoku Seigen Kai). In 1988, Hikage graduated from Takasaki College with a major in koto music. She was then accepted as a special research student (uchideshi) at the Sawai Sokyoku In(Sawai Koto Institute) under Tadao and Kazue Sawai, where she received her master's certificate (kyoshi). Hikage also completed a one-year intensive seminar at the Sawai Sokyoku In. In 1992, she moved to Honolulu, Hawaii to teach koto at the Sawai Kotot Kai Hawaii (Sawai Koto Institute Hawaii branch) and at the University of Hawaii. In 1997, she moved to San Francisco where she continues her concert and teaching activities. Hikage premiered Hyo-shin Na's “Crazy Horse" for Korean Traditional Orchestra and Koto Solo with the National Orchestra of Traditional Instruments in Seoul, Korea in November, 2011. In the Bay Area, she also premiered Hyo-shin Na’s " Night Procession of the Hundred Demons", "Koto Music" and "Koto Ninano". In 2014, Hikage gave a solo recital with a program devoted to Hyo-shin Na's music for koto/bass koto at Buam Arts Hall in Seoul, Korea. The second CD of her playing of Na's music was released will on the Top Arts Label in the fall of 2014. www.ShokoHikage.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432753356756-42RMHVJW0FGCM4O1L9YK/marina-fukushima-suite-jtown-dancer.png Performer Bios - Marina Fukushima, Choreographer/Dancer Marina Fukushima, born in Tokyo, Japan, is a dancer/choreographer based in San Francisco. She graduated with a BFA in Dance from Butler University and received teaching assistantship at the University of Iowa for her MFA in Dance. She has danced with Epiphany Productions, KUNST-STOFF, Mark Foehringer Dance Project, ODC and project agora and toured across the United States and internationally in Germany, Greece, Japan and Peru. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1429567352138-FMHOXIUQ76DVH8RREYW8/masaru-koga-musician.jpg Performer Bios - Mas Koga, Woodwinds/Shakuhachi Originally from Japan and currently based in San Francisco CA, saxophonist and flautist Masaru Koga has been an integral part of the creative music scene, known for his colorful cross-cultural musical palette and innovative approach. He has traveled, recorded, and performed both nationally and internationally with artists such as Akira Tana, Anthony Brown, Mark Izu, Hafez Modirzadeh, Royal Hartigan, Fred Ho, Wayne Wallace, Gail Dobson, and Kat Parra. His recent work includes traveling to Japan with the Otonowa Project on a concert tour where they performed for the survivors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432753161493-KVZPNJSAN79J1ZZ56W1R/john-carlos-perea.jpeg Performer Bios - John-Carlos Perea, Vocals/Bass John-Carlos is an ethnomusicologist and assistant professor in the Department of American Indian Studies. His research interests include the politics of noise and sound studies, urban American Indian lived experiences and cultural productions, music technologies, recording and archiving practices, Native and African American jazz cultures, and the Creek and Kaw saxophonist Jim Pepper. His essays have also been published in MUSICultures (formerly the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music / La Revue de musique folklorique canadienne), the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the Grove Dictionary of American Music.   http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/gallery daily 0.75 2015-03-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425347051867-6066HD0L1EW8OZ8CZRZA/image-asset.jpeg Suite J-Town in Photos - October Planning Meeting at Kimochi, Inc. pictured (clockwise from top left): Steve Nakajo, Mark Izu, Wes Nihei, Jill Shiraki, Brenda Wong Aoki, Marissa Bergmann https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425347051867-6066HD0L1EW8OZ8CZRZA/image-asset.jpeg Suite J-Town in Photos - October Planning Meeting at Kimochi, Inc. pictured (clockwise from top left): Steve Nakajo, Mark Izu, Wes Nihei, Jill Shiraki, Brenda Wong Aoki, Marissa Bergmann https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425349442087-UCFG3G4TVEHXWGKMSIVO/IMG_6483.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos - Mark Izu and Brenda Wong Aoki conducting research in Japantown https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425349456640-X3ZDUSIQ1VA688O39OJV/IMG_9559.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos - J-Tell Birthday Cake on the Full Moon! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425349491062-EVSON0ETW5H6IVRXW8WR/IMG_9568.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425347673407-V93LOYQFCV3BKOZYVFB9/MVI_9561+ss3.png Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425359731277-3RDSJCN9NEFK5GIZRS63/IMG_5779.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos - Marissa Bergmann & Charlene Kelley at First Voice Planning Retreat in February https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425348064236-TS7V4FDLSNO4MU0MCCZB/image.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos - J-Tells Meet with Nancy Hom in mid-February https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425349324311-YZCZ3CCZTVZ11868MKB7/IMG_5833.JPG Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425349358990-IVWT85EOD9SUIV24MPQG/IMG_5850.JPG Suite J-Town in Photos - Our first look at Suite J-Town's new home! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425349360662-IV5MXOARPMGFYHBXYPP3/IMG_5851.JPG Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425349405225-SVMT5LGB2RL965IVSTZF/IMG_5854.JPG Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425349592190-LST1BW5K8P10KLI7UVEN/IMG_5855.JPG Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425349433009-NP290K2LLSEW9WW4W56E/IMG_5858.JPG Suite J-Town in Photos - Eryn Kimura standing in our new space https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425615202006-CHFOMA5O8YILJW1L4TI1/image-asset.jpeg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425615233225-V3C0LJWFS0GXU0K3GISG/Dolls.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425615226006-A6VZ6R1S8Q9B8UQ3ZL5O/Church.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425615244073-NHK0G7V8NBYL5VKRMDOX/JACL.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425615251389-M6G8WQKYR6H88N3MBQWH/Kokoro.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1426557894331-L8JP4LQLS1TKS7CR8SXY/image-asset.jpeg Suite J-Town in Photos - J-Tells holding paper dolls made by the sweet, teeny tiny preschoolers at Nihonmachi Little Friends https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427843775232-BC5IJ6K6P2V393B4KH42/image-asset.jpeg Suite J-Town in Photos the incredible ms. sugarpie desanto in the late 1940s. this fillmore / western addition raised rhythm & blues artist https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427843817777-5JPFXJL47ZI6VXUPG3V5/11073504_10205285036700962_2877368385527984447_n.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427843822680-5HKK20EXLNEXQFVUOL4M/11082619_10153162447171322_4842512158748736204_n.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos Butterflies for the Mandala! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427843844475-2JAD8H4J10PH74BRASAM/11073330_10153192342677288_2210980629146940155_n.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427844023600-DD68BQSWYFFKRTLF6LS0/11058668_10205327061831564_559512784008435098_n.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos The mandala in progress! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427844031116-1ELFSBPXXHINQZXY0L72/B__fDneU0AAMqEc.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427844041195-BYVQ8TJSSYP21AH34210/Celi_3.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos Queer Filipina Reverend Jeanelle Ablola delivering a sermon about "Reclaiming Ourselves" at Pine Methodist Church! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427844047771-TN2MSWI22YQ7CMW8ZMFK/heartmatured.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos Paper blessings for the peace pagoda https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427844153758-FHE27ECN8AYNMBH9G5CP/720px-Geary-east-from-Baker-and-St-Josephs-Nov-7-1958-SFPL.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos Geary St. @ St. Joseph, 1958 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427844156914-ML6GSJ6LYTPJ9HLDWZXY/1977-backing-in-3-story-victorian-Dave-Glass.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427844167609-34BNTM2E4XCAVSUCN1KM/kt6v19s05v-FID316.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427844172424-4UTZ6X8I0DS2BIYF0QOY/kt8779s1c4-FID109.jpg Suite J-Town in Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427844175769-GYYMIDZORC8PEA33AG4V/fitzgerald.jpeg Suite J-Town in Photos http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/j-tells-bios daily 0.75 2015-02-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423426535846-C4CA504KJPL1I6TMLDO1/Aimari+Dreams.jpg About the J-Tells - Marissa Katarina Bergmann (Aimari) Marissa Katarina Bergmann ( Aimari ) is an emerging artist, photographer, filmmaker, and vocalist based in San Francisco, CA. She graduated from Duke University, receiving a BA in Visual and Media Studies, Documentary Studies, and Photography. Marissa also studied at the Studio Art Centers International Florence once in 2009 and once again in 2010 under a Benenson Award in the Arts. Her personal and collaborative works have been featured in galleries, universities, and film festivals nationally in San Francisco, Oakland, Durham, and Chapel Hill; and internationally in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and Florence, Italy. Marissa is currently an MFA Fine Arts candidate at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. Marissa grew up in the California desert to a Japanese-German family, where she spent a great deal of her time with her Nisei (second generation) grandmother. Memories of the warm desert sun and time spent in her grandmother's house –a place with a golden atmosphere of repair, mending, and healing– are what fuel her work today. Marissa writes: "If the whole world were my grandmother's house, the world would be a better place, a place I am determined to create through my art." What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-Town is a story of resilience that spans many generations – from our ancestors, to our grandparents, parents, and our own selves, and it is a story that will continue far into the future. Suite J-Town is a special opportunity to make art for a cause, art to activate the community, art to lift the soul. In trying times, we remember how important it is to unite and stand together to make our voices heard. As a hapa mixed-race artist, I hope to be able to bring my unique voice, perspective and experience, along with a heart full of energy and enthusiasm, to this beautiful collaboration. Portfolio: www.aimari.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423426535846-C4CA504KJPL1I6TMLDO1/Aimari+Dreams.jpg About the J-Tells - Marissa Katarina Bergmann (Aimari) Marissa Katarina Bergmann ( Aimari ) is an emerging artist, photographer, filmmaker, and vocalist based in San Francisco, CA. She graduated from Duke University, receiving a BA in Visual and Media Studies, Documentary Studies, and Photography. Marissa also studied at the Studio Art Centers International Florence once in 2009 and once again in 2010 under a Benenson Award in the Arts. Her personal and collaborative works have been featured in galleries, universities, and film festivals nationally in San Francisco, Oakland, Durham, and Chapel Hill; and internationally in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and Florence, Italy. Marissa is currently an MFA Fine Arts candidate at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. Marissa grew up in the California desert to a Japanese-German family, where she spent a great deal of her time with her Nisei (second generation) grandmother. Memories of the warm desert sun and time spent in her grandmother's house –a place with a golden atmosphere of repair, mending, and healing– are what fuel her work today. Marissa writes: "If the whole world were my grandmother's house, the world would be a better place, a place I am determined to create through my art." What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-Town is a story of resilience that spans many generations – from our ancestors, to our grandparents, parents, and our own selves, and it is a story that will continue far into the future. Suite J-Town is a special opportunity to make art for a cause, art to activate the community, art to lift the soul. In trying times, we remember how important it is to unite and stand together to make our voices heard. As a hapa mixed-race artist, I hope to be able to bring my unique voice, perspective and experience, along with a heart full of energy and enthusiasm, to this beautiful collaboration. Portfolio: www.aimari.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423358792801-0QJD65ELJTO7E0DKB0VK/suitejtown_charlene_kelley_jtell_glitter_artist.jpg About the J-Tells - Charlene Kelley I am a Glitter Artist creating interesting paintings that sparkle. Influenced by working in graphic design, animation, games, and film. I’ve exhibited in various galleries and art shows around the bay area. I earned a bachelors of science degree for Media Art and Animation from The Art Institute of California - San Francisco. My first solo gallery show “Sweets for the Sweet” at Trickster in Berkeley has made me a favorite returning artist. My work has been part of STUDIO Gallery SF, SF Bazaar Maker Faire, Alternative Press Expo, and Public Works. I continue to search for opportunities to share unique art with others who value true originality. What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-town means I have a link to my forgotten roots and a place to rediscover and explore more about my heritage. Learning a new generation of mixed culture, informed by the past. Portfolio: www.glitterside.com   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424740700346-LRIF5SX8515LGN0MCSCC/junho_kim_jtell_filmmaker_film_video_cinematography.jpg About the J-Tells - Junho Kim Junho Kim was born on September 28, 1988 in Tacoma, WA to Jaekyu and Younghae Kim. His parents ran several small businesses, including a clothing store, travel agency, and Korean video rental house. It was at the rental house where he made his first cut of film, repairing damaged magnetic strips of VHS tapes. One of his favorite memories from that time was when persimmons would come into a season and his mom’s shop would fill up with huge bags of them. Kim began his current trajectory of filmmaking in 2011, while a student at Duke University, where he studied with David Gatten, Steve Milligan, Josh Gibson, and Bill Brown. He has also collaborated with acclaimed filmmaker, Emiko Omori. Nowadays, he makes videos about technology, science, and design at WIRED Magazine. What does Suite J-Town mean to me? When I think of Suite J-Town, I think about a scene from Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil, where he describes a couple praying for their missing cat, Tora, at "a temple consecrated to cats." He continues to explain how “they had to come there, both of them, under the rain, to perform the rite that would repair the web of time where it had been broken.” That scene captures the essence of what Japantown means to me. It is a place that closes the vast distance between people and their history; a place to perform the old rituals and traditions, bridging the fissures left by time and space. For me, Suite J-Town is a part of those rites—an earnest series of acts to preserve the threads that connect us not only to our past, but also to one another. Portfolio: vimeo.com/junhokim https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424740607613-304EW7XZE9V1IAPRE7OA/suitejtown_eryn_kimura_jtell_japantown_pika_pika.jpg About the J-Tells - Eryn Kimura “Neither black nor white and neither fully American nor fully Asian, my existence as a fifth generation Asian-American - Chinese-American and Japanese-American - resides in a space of liminality, neither definitely here nor there. Although this identity is powerfully fluid and intricate in its aesthetic beauty and form, my indefinite identity is invisible because it does not fit the conventional, or colonial, binaries. My art brings to light my own vibrant, beautifully-woven, collective history while also articulating the unique diversity and resiliency of the Asian-American experience. Through my pieces, I wish to make the invisible, visible.” - Eryn Kimura What does Suite J-Town mean to me? It's literally everything I have ever wanted to see come from this community, on a beautifully ornate gold platter. Like the west African sankofa, jtown suite is a spiritual return to our collective past while simultaneously building a more inclusive, sustainably vibrant future. Jtown suite is reclamation. Portfolio: www.erynyk.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423859555144-0QPWI6V24PTTCROCA9IP/suitejtown_yuki_maruyama_jtell_artist.jpg About the J-Tells - Yuki Maruyama Yuki is a Japanese-American artist who grew up in constant transition between her two primary cultures and languages. Her drawings are strongly influenced by the Manga (Japanese comics) she avidly read in her childhood in the US and through her adolescence in Japan. The genre is intimately connected to her dual background; Manga and related forms of popular art have played significant roles in the cultural cross-pollination between the US and Japan, especially in the last three decades. Yuki received her MFA in Drawing and Painting from California College of the Arts in 2004. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, namely at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Southern Exposure, and the LAB in San Francisco; Flux Factory and the Queens Museum of Art in New York City; Theatres des Sens Gallery and Domestic Art Project Yomoyama-So in and near Tokyo, Japan. What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Japantown embodies the complex history of tension, osmosis, and coming together of Japanese and American cultures in San Francisco. Suite J-Town pays tribute its rich and legacy while reflecting upon the future of our city's cultural landscape. As an artist, and as an individual whose personal history is deeply rooted in Japan and the US, I am thankful for the opportunity to intimately explore the story of Nihonmachi and collaborate with its community. Portfolio: yukimaruyama.wordpress.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423595720790-P7XYGL3XYX6SJ2U3B5YB/suitejtown_elena_nielsen_jtell_odori.jpg About the J-Tells - Elena Harumi Nielsen Elena Nielsen is a hapa-American born in Southern California and raised in the East Bay. She has been active in Japanese-American community work since childhood, participating in volunteer events like Obon and Mochitsuki at the Diablo Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. Her experiences with her cultural heritage have inspired everything from her interviewing of Nisei for a history project in 8th grade, her major in Sociology at University of California Berkeley, her former position as a Publicity Officer for Cal’s Nikkei Student Union, to her recent internship in the Programs department of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC). She continues to stay connected to her culture through Taiko drumming, assisting in teaching Bon Odori dance during the summer, and article writing for Nikkei Heritage magazine, with the hopes of pursuing a career in Japanese American non-profit work in the future. What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-town tackles the issue of SF Japantown’s preservation by burning it down to its core elements. It takes technical terms like “cultural appropriation” and “gentrification” in the context of Japantown and humanizes them with the personal experiences, memories, and hopes of locals and J-tells alike—communicating across generational as well as ethnic and racial divides to all that relate to the issues of family, identity, and cultural longevity. As for the importance of preserving Japantown, there is something about being here that makes me instantly happy whenever I visit. We all carry our feelings of cultural pride inside ourselves individually but there is some mysterious thing about being able to travel, to pilgrimage to a place that epitomizes those feelings through its history, which allows us to bask in the parts of ourselves that do not always get to be expressed in our day-to-day routine. I hope to recreate this dual sense of both familiarity and awe for SF Japantown through the performances and events involved in the Suite J-town tour, so that visitors will also feel inspired to engage in the conversation regarding the future of our community. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424151596459-ZBOH6OLT8QMM29MZR1JX/image-asset.png About the J-Tells - Celi Tamayo-Lee After my first day of kindergarten I came home to tell my mother of my new definitive plan: “When I grow up, I want to be Japanese”. It was always a joke – what do a Cantonese-Chinese mother and an Ilocano-Filipino father do? They send their daughter to a Japanese bilingual program at the neighborhood elementary school. A 3rd-generation San Franciscan, I am a child and descendant of farmers, businessmen and women, community hosts and caretakers, laborers, cooks, (im)migrants, homemakers, midwives, and artists. I am from an urban generation that has grown up in the polycultural intersections of public schools, cross-town bus rides, chronic after school activities and vibrant summer camps. I am new to identifying as an artist, I’ve spent most hours community organizing. I have a loose background in documentary film, installation art, performance art, experimental film, and eternal passions for singing and dancing. Lately, I’ve been into “social artistry” - facilitating group processes that focus on making the most of people’s time and talents in a socially just, participatory, and ethical way. For me, Suite J-Town is an opportunity to: 1. Generate a creative response to the seeming crisis of gentrification in SF and everywhere 2. Collect stories and shape history 3. Learn about my own community 4. Reflect 5. Access stranger’s emotions 6. Face the past to better understand the complexities of displacement 7. Celebrate resilience 8. Transform as an artist and a person 9. Inspire others 10. Ask: “So what?” 11. Create more visibility for asian-americans 12. Radically imagine what we want https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425027375378-OUF0N5CCAKBRJRRN18J0/suitejtown_ayana_yonesaka_jtell_dancer.jpg About the J-Tells - Ayana Yonesaka Since 2009, Ayana Yonesaka has been an active dancer and choreographer in San Francisco. She moved to the Bay Area after 12 years of training in modern dance in her hometown of Sapporo, Japan. After graduating in 2013 with a degree in dance from SFSU, she is now an instructor at the San Francisco Youth Ballet Academy and a dancer with LV Dance Collective. As a choreographer, she has presented multiple pieces that are centered around the beauty of individuals gravitating towards one another for support through hard times. She hopes to continue to create an authentic series of works revolving around this human relationship, and is excited to align her vision with Suite J-Town. What does Suite J-Town mean to me? My unique identity as a Hapa growing up in Sapporo is, without a doubt, the core of my artistic voice and is something I strive to cultivate as I continue to be exposed to other unique voices in San Francisco. Suite J-Town is an opportunity for me to study, connect, and magnify the voices of the Japantown community through the art of movement. I hope to capture J-Town’s untold history and unseen culture, and to uncover the soul of its people through artistic collaboration. http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/postcard daily 0.75 2015-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427789872122-PJ1H45YWYFKP6R233DFA/Suite+J-Town+Postcard+FRONT+crop.jpg Postcard https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427789872122-PJ1H45YWYFKP6R233DFA/Suite+J-Town+Postcard+FRONT+crop.jpg Postcard https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427931663651-P7AZK97DR89FV6JFT91H/Suite+J-Town+Postcard+BACK+final.jpg Postcard http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/sf-japantown-history daily 0.75 2015-01-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1421801855966-EESEPFLNP5MTUX5TC5MY/004.jpg History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1421819879821-YGECOR7Y7WOP544YB6XV/image-asset.jpeg History - KRON "SF in the 20s" featuring Brenda Wong Aoki https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1421801810254-5KVJXWCK3L2P8AYFB69E/1.Helen%26Gunjiro.jpg History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1421801825547-VORNGJP8MTKOKEOBLXLO/7.Sadae.jpg History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1421801902802-ID7266I38VDRZ3CYI2G8/Kimon+Gakuen.jpg History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1421801902212-45IQJDM11Q9PMZHCFAR4/Hotel-protest_web.jpg History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1421801964680-47WIJ45GIWBJFVJ54SRR/Last+Dance+cover.jpg History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1421801986795-W51JLI5VLYVFQGEAOFGG/Makoto%27s+Band.jpg History http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/artist-bios daily 0.75 2015-02-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423597178997-KTY3KGIL4CVXG0PBZH59/image-asset.jpeg Artist Bios - Brenda Wong Aoki, Artistic Director Thrice a NEA Theater Fellow, Brenda Wong Aoki writes and performs monodramas. Her intense lyrical song/dance/dramas are drawn from her grandfather’s memories of San Francisco during the Great Earthquake, Kabuki legends and her own personal life experience. Aoki’s multidisciplinary performances weave together Japanese Noh, Kyogen Theater, Commedia Dell’Arte, movement and voice. She has performed in such venues as the Kennedy Center, New Victory Theater on Broadway, Hong Kong Performing Arts Center, the Adelaide International Festival in Australia, the Esplanade in Singapore, the Graz Festival Austria and the International House in Tokyo. Brenda’s plays have been produced world-wide: Mermaid, a work for symphony, was commissioned by Maestro Kent Nagano, the award-winning Queen’s Garden was published by Routledge Press and produced at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend was the American representative to the Adelaide International Festival, Australia, Random Acts was produced by the Dallas Theater Center, Kuan-Yin: Our Lady of Compassion was commissioned by the Hong Kong International Festival and performed at the Esplanade in Singapore, and Obake: Tales of Spirits Past and Present was presented at the Kennedy Center and on Broadway at the New Victory Theater. Her CD recordings of The Queen’s Garden and Tales of the Pacific Rim were awarded Indie Awards for Best Spoken Word. Her book/CD Mermaid Meat was released in Tokyo 2008 and her most recent recording Legend of Morning, was released in 2009. In 2013, she produced a pageant play with world musicians and dancers about the lost continent of MU to great success. Currently, she is developing "Suite J-Town," a new site-specific work about San Francisco Japantown to premiere in May 2015. Brenda has deep roots in San Francisco. Her paternal grandfather was a founder of Japantown in the 1890’s, and her maternal grandmother was a leader of the first Chinatown garment union in the 1920s. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild, ASCAP and the Western Arts Alliance. Brenda is an active member of the National Recording Academy. A founding member of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University, Aoki continues to teach and perform internationally. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423597178997-KTY3KGIL4CVXG0PBZH59/image-asset.jpeg Artist Bios - Brenda Wong Aoki, Artistic Director Thrice a NEA Theater Fellow, Brenda Wong Aoki writes and performs monodramas. Her intense lyrical song/dance/dramas are drawn from her grandfather’s memories of San Francisco during the Great Earthquake, Kabuki legends and her own personal life experience. Aoki’s multidisciplinary performances weave together Japanese Noh, Kyogen Theater, Commedia Dell’Arte, movement and voice. She has performed in such venues as the Kennedy Center, New Victory Theater on Broadway, Hong Kong Performing Arts Center, the Adelaide International Festival in Australia, the Esplanade in Singapore, the Graz Festival Austria and the International House in Tokyo. Brenda’s plays have been produced world-wide: Mermaid, a work for symphony, was commissioned by Maestro Kent Nagano, the award-winning Queen’s Garden was published by Routledge Press and produced at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend was the American representative to the Adelaide International Festival, Australia, Random Acts was produced by the Dallas Theater Center, Kuan-Yin: Our Lady of Compassion was commissioned by the Hong Kong International Festival and performed at the Esplanade in Singapore, and Obake: Tales of Spirits Past and Present was presented at the Kennedy Center and on Broadway at the New Victory Theater. Her CD recordings of The Queen’s Garden and Tales of the Pacific Rim were awarded Indie Awards for Best Spoken Word. Her book/CD Mermaid Meat was released in Tokyo 2008 and her most recent recording Legend of Morning, was released in 2009. In 2013, she produced a pageant play with world musicians and dancers about the lost continent of MU to great success. Currently, she is developing "Suite J-Town," a new site-specific work about San Francisco Japantown to premiere in May 2015. Brenda has deep roots in San Francisco. Her paternal grandfather was a founder of Japantown in the 1890’s, and her maternal grandmother was a leader of the first Chinatown garment union in the 1920s. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild, ASCAP and the Western Arts Alliance. Brenda is an active member of the National Recording Academy. A founding member of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University, Aoki continues to teach and perform internationally. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423597059701-LW71NONNSND77KBS2UXT/moo_MarkBW-e.jpg Artist Bios - Mark Izu, Musical Director Mark Izu, known for his integration of jazz with global modalities and instrumentation, composes for orchestra, jazz ensemble, film, theater and dance; plays contra bass, the sheng (Chinese traditional multi-reed instrument) and the sho (Japanese tradition multi-reed instrument). The only symphonic sho composer in the world, Izu premiered Mermaid, an orchestral work for Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony. In 2005, he wrote the sho solo for, The Manzanar Project, also with Nagano. He received a 2009 Emmy for Bolinao 52, a documentary about the Vietnamese boat people. Izu’s odyssey began in 1976 with Japanese Imperial court master musician, Suenobu Togi, and continued until Togi’s death over 30 years later. Izu’s CD, Threading Time features the final recording of Togi Suenobu with Zakir Hussain (tabla), and was released in Tokyo. It received Tokyo’s Critic’s Choice for Top 10 jazz releases of 2008. Izu’s film scores include Academy Award-winning Days of Waiting; Emmy Award-winning Return to the Valley; and a new score for silent masterpiece, Dragon Painter. His theater scores were performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and Sundance Festival. He was awarded a Dramalogue Award and two INDIE Awards for composition. Izu has received three Meet the Composer Commissions, a Japan/US Creative Artist Fellowship, and an ASCAP Award. Izu is a founding faculty member of Stanford University’s Institute of Diversity in the Arts. He lives with his family in San Francisco. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424152199841-RD4QIXTVGEXV5PYYOPAB/image-asset.jpeg Artist Bios - Nancy Hom, Visual Artist Nancy Hom was born in Toisan, China and came to the United States when she was five years old. She grew up in New York City and graduated from Pratt Institute in 1971. She moved to San Francisco in 1974. She is an artist, writer, organizer, curator, and arts consultant with over 35 years of experience in the non-profit arts field. Her art has been exhibited in numerous galleries, locally and internationally, including the de Young Museum, Euphrat Museum of Art, Stanford University, Oakland Museum, Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz, De Saisset Museum, Intersection for the Arts, C.N. Gorman Museum, California Historical Society, SF International Airport, Asian American Arts Centre, New York City, Exhibits USA, C.A.L. Valeyre, Paris, France, and Somart San Angel, Villa Obregón, Mexico City. http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/press-photos daily 0.75 2015-03-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427767545975-GS5ZDDCMBNUCW1RI79NM/image-asset.jpeg Press Photos - Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427767545975-GS5ZDDCMBNUCW1RI79NM/image-asset.jpeg Press Photos - Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427406374746-YE462EQG28ICYXP5STU7/Mu+Image+05+music+dance.jpg Press Photos - Marina Fukushima and Masaru Koga Performers in A Walk Through Time, part of Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427406351492-U9QLD7XPQUPNU2S0LVM8/Nancy_Hom_Mandala_Chinatown_San_Francisco_Oakland.jpg Press Photos - Nancy Hom's Chinatown Mandala https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427406363208-NF9K0M8F6I5WTX60NDSQ/janice-mirikitani-cecil-williams-cultures-of-resilience.jpg Press Photos - Janice Mirikitani and Cecil Williams In front of International Hotel during Redevelopment circa 1962-1978 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427488252697-0VF1JUTKZVTXV87SC6DU/1.Helen%26Gunjiro.jpg Press Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427406548769-OUIX05V4IER70117GNSE/suite-jtown-first-voice-kimochi-inc-japantown-community-calligraphy-seniors.png Press Photos - Grandmother’s hands at Kimochi Home Documented during community immersion in Japantown, photo by Marissa Katarina Bergmann https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427488410254-3WREJ09FZ31FWE1IVRZ0/7.Sadae.jpg Press Photos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427488519900-R4B8V9XWAXB5GRA6T0IC/Suite+J-Town.JPG Press Photos http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/home daily 1.0 2015-06-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424595912983-W7QSV24CIAHD8DSS9HRN/brenda_wong_aoki.jpg Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432845856581-COA43DK2WG4MN79F7DHL/8.jpg Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424386613478-1TYQ12AO38TM77CVWQ3L/mark_izu.jpg Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1430772870012-1B8TPIIZRB6XWDO6U4WQ/donate-hana.jpg Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432850145880-VPUX5WOJ2WPRQ51S6NSC/image-asset.png Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428106236842-5ELCWIM4H9RMEFNBB24F/Mandala_part-web.jpg Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/artists daily 0.75 2015-04-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423597178997-KTY3KGIL4CVXG0PBZH59/image-asset.jpeg Artists - Brenda Wong Aoki, Artistic Director Thrice a NEA Theater Fellow, Brenda Wong Aoki writes and performs monodramas. Her intense lyrical song/dance/dramas are drawn from her grandfather’s memories of San Francisco during the Great Earthquake, Kabuki legends and her own personal life experience. Aoki’s multidisciplinary performances weave together Japanese Noh, Kyogen Theater, Commedia Dell’Arte, movement and voice. She has performed in such venues as the Kennedy Center, New Victory Theater on Broadway, Hong Kong Performing Arts Center, the Adelaide International Festival in Australia, the Esplanade in Singapore, the Graz Festival Austria and the International House in Tokyo. Brenda’s plays have been produced world-wide: Mermaid, a work for symphony, was commissioned by Maestro Kent Nagano, the award-winning Queen’s Garden was published by Routledge Press and produced at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend was the American representative to the Adelaide International Festival, Australia, Random Acts was produced by the Dallas Theater Center, Kuan-Yin: Our Lady of Compassion was commissioned by the Hong Kong International Festival and performed at the Esplanade in Singapore, and Obake: Tales of Spirits Past and Present was presented at the Kennedy Center and on Broadway at the New Victory Theater. Her CD recordings of The Queen’s Garden and Tales of the Pacific Rim were awarded Indie Awards for Best Spoken Word. Her book/CD Mermaid Meat was released in Tokyo 2008 and her most recent recording Legend of Morning, was released in 2009. In 2013, she produced a pageant play with world musicians and dancers about the lost continent of MU to great success. Currently, she is developing "Suite J-Town," a new site-specific work about San Francisco Japantown to premiere in May 2015. Brenda has deep roots in San Francisco. Her paternal grandfather was a founder of Japantown in the 1890’s, and her maternal grandmother was a leader of the first Chinatown garment union in the 1920s. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild, ASCAP and the Western Arts Alliance. Brenda is an active member of the National Recording Academy. A founding member of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University, Aoki continues to teach and perform internationally. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423597059701-LW71NONNSND77KBS2UXT/moo_MarkBW-e.jpg Artists - Mark Izu, Musical Director Mark Izu, known for his integration of jazz with global modalities and instrumentation, composes for orchestra, jazz ensemble, film, theater and dance; plays contra bass, the sheng (Chinese traditional multi-reed instrument) and the sho (Japanese tradition multi-reed instrument). The only symphonic sho composer in the world, Izu premiered Mermaid, an orchestral work for Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony. In 2005, he wrote the sho solo for, The Manzanar Project, also with Nagano. He received a 2009 Emmy for Bolinao 52, a documentary about the Vietnamese boat people. Izu’s odyssey began in 1976 with Japanese Imperial court master musician, Suenobu Togi, and continued until Togi’s death over 30 years later. Izu’s CD, Threading Time features the final recording of Togi Suenobu with Zakir Hussain (tabla), and was released in Tokyo. It received Tokyo’s Critic’s Choice for Top 10 jazz releases of 2008. Izu’s film scores include Academy Award-winning Days of Waiting; Emmy Award-winning Return to the Valley; and a new score for silent masterpiece, Dragon Painter. His theater scores were performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and Sundance Festival. He was awarded a Dramalogue Award and two INDIE Awards for composition. Izu has received three Meet the Composer Commissions, a Japan/US Creative Artist Fellowship, and an ASCAP Award. Izu is a founding faculty member of Stanford University’s Institute of Diversity in the Arts. He lives with his family in San Francisco. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424152199841-RD4QIXTVGEXV5PYYOPAB/image-asset.jpeg Artists - Nancy Hom, Visual Artist Nancy Hom was born in Toisan, China and came to the United States when she was five years old. She grew up in New York City and graduated from Pratt Institute in 1971. She moved to San Francisco in 1974. She is an artist, writer, organizer, curator, and arts consultant with over 35 years of experience in the non-profit arts field. Her art has been exhibited in numerous galleries, locally and internationally, including the de Young Museum, Euphrat Museum of Art, Stanford University, Oakland Museum, Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz, De Saisset Museum, Intersection for the Arts, C.N. Gorman Museum, California Historical Society, SF International Airport, Asian American Arts Centre, New York City, Exhibits USA, C.A.L. Valeyre, Paris, France, and Somart San Angel, Villa Obregón, Mexico City. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423426535846-C4CA504KJPL1I6TMLDO1/Aimari+Dreams.jpg Artists - Marissa Katarina Bergmann (Aimari) Marissa Katarina Bergmann ( Aimari ) is an emerging artist, photographer, filmmaker, and vocalist based in San Francisco, CA. She graduated from Duke University, receiving a BA in Visual and Media Studies, Documentary Studies, and Photography. Marissa also studied at the Studio Art Centers International Florence once in 2009 and once again in 2010 under a Benenson Award in the Arts. Her personal and collaborative works have been featured in galleries, universities, and film festivals nationally in San Francisco, Oakland, Durham, and Chapel Hill; and internationally in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and Florence, Italy. Marissa is currently an MFA Fine Arts candidate at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. Marissa grew up in the California desert to a Japanese-German family, where she spent a great deal of her time with her Nisei (second generation) grandmother. Memories of the warm desert sun and time spent in her grandmother's house –a place with a golden atmosphere of repair, mending, and healing– are what fuel her work today. Marissa writes: "If the whole world were my grandmother's house, the world would be a better place, a place I am determined to create through my art." What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-Town is a story of resilience that spans many generations – from our ancestors, to our grandparents, parents, and our own selves, and it is a story that will continue far into the future. Suite J-Town is a special opportunity to make art for a cause, art to activate the community, art to lift the soul. In trying times, we remember how important it is to unite and stand together to make our voices heard. As a hapa mixed-race artist, I hope to be able to bring my unique voice, perspective and experience, along with a heart full of energy and enthusiasm, to this beautiful collaboration. Portfolio: www.aimari.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423358792801-0QJD65ELJTO7E0DKB0VK/suitejtown_charlene_kelley_jtell_glitter_artist.jpg Artists - Charlene Kelley I am a Glitter Artist creating interesting paintings that sparkle. Influenced by working in graphic design, animation, games, and film. I’ve exhibited in various galleries and art shows around the bay area. I earned a bachelors of science degree for Media Art and Animation from The Art Institute of California - San Francisco. My first solo gallery show “Sweets for the Sweet” at Trickster in Berkeley has made me a favorite returning artist. My work has been part of STUDIO Gallery SF, SF Bazaar Maker Faire, Alternative Press Expo, and Public Works. I continue to search for opportunities to share unique art with others who value true originality. What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-town means I have a link to my forgotten roots and a place to rediscover and explore more about my heritage. Learning a new generation of mixed culture, informed by the past. Portfolio: www.glitterside.com   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424740700346-LRIF5SX8515LGN0MCSCC/junho_kim_jtell_filmmaker_film_video_cinematography.jpg Artists - Junho Kim Junho Kim was born on September 28, 1988 in Tacoma, WA to Jaekyu and Younghae Kim. His parents ran several small businesses, including a clothing store, travel agency, and Korean video rental house. It was at the rental house where he made his first cut of film, repairing damaged magnetic strips of VHS tapes. One of his favorite memories from that time was when persimmons would come into a season and his mom’s shop would fill up with huge bags of them. Kim began his current trajectory of filmmaking in 2011, while a student at Duke University, where he studied with David Gatten, Steve Milligan, Josh Gibson, and Bill Brown. He has also collaborated with acclaimed filmmaker, Emiko Omori. Nowadays, he makes videos about technology, science, and design at WIRED Magazine. What does Suite J-Town mean to me? When I think of Suite J-Town, I think about a scene from Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil, where he describes a couple praying for their missing cat, Tora, at "a temple consecrated to cats." He continues to explain how “they had to come there, both of them, under the rain, to perform the rite that would repair the web of time where it had been broken.” That scene captures the essence of what Japantown means to me. It is a place that closes the vast distance between people and their history; a place to perform the old rituals and traditions, bridging the fissures left by time and space. For me, Suite J-Town is a part of those rites—an earnest series of acts to preserve the threads that connect us not only to our past, but also to one another. Portfolio: vimeo.com/junhokim https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424740607613-304EW7XZE9V1IAPRE7OA/suitejtown_eryn_kimura_jtell_japantown_pika_pika.jpg Artists - Eryn Kimura “Neither black nor white and neither fully American nor fully Asian, my existence as a fifth generation Asian-American - Chinese-American and Japanese-American - resides in a space of liminality, neither definitely here nor there. Although this identity is powerfully fluid and intricate in its aesthetic beauty and form, my indefinite identity is invisible because it does not fit the conventional, or colonial, binaries. My art brings to light my own vibrant, beautifully-woven, collective history while also articulating the unique diversity and resiliency of the Asian-American experience. Through my pieces, I wish to make the invisible, visible.” - Eryn Kimura What does Suite J-Town mean to me? It's literally everything I have ever wanted to see come from this community, on a beautifully ornate gold platter. Like the west African sankofa, jtown suite is a spiritual return to our collective past while simultaneously building a more inclusive, sustainably vibrant future. Jtown suite is reclamation. Portfolio: www.erynyk.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423859555144-0QPWI6V24PTTCROCA9IP/suitejtown_yuki_maruyama_jtell_artist.jpg Artists - Yuki Maruyama Yuki is a Japanese-American artist who grew up in constant transition between her two primary cultures and languages. Her drawings are strongly influenced by the Manga (Japanese comics) she avidly read in her childhood in the US and through her adolescence in Japan. The genre is intimately connected to her dual background; Manga and related forms of popular art have played significant roles in the cultural cross-pollination between the US and Japan, especially in the last three decades. Yuki received her MFA in Drawing and Painting from California College of the Arts in 2004. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, namely at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Southern Exposure, and the LAB in San Francisco; Flux Factory and the Queens Museum of Art in New York City; Theatres des Sens Gallery and Domestic Art Project Yomoyama-So in and near Tokyo, Japan. What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Japantown embodies the complex history of tension, osmosis, and coming together of Japanese and American cultures in San Francisco. Suite J-Town pays tribute its rich and legacy while reflecting upon the future of our city's cultural landscape. As an artist, and as an individual whose personal history is deeply rooted in Japan and the US, I am thankful for the opportunity to intimately explore the story of Nihonmachi and collaborate with its community. Portfolio: yukimaruyama.wordpress.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423595720790-P7XYGL3XYX6SJ2U3B5YB/suitejtown_elena_nielsen_jtell_odori.jpg Artists - Elena Harumi Nielsen Elena Nielsen is a hapa-American born in Southern California and raised in the East Bay. She has been active in Japanese-American community work since childhood, participating in volunteer events like Obon and Mochitsuki at the Diablo Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. Her experiences with her cultural heritage have inspired everything from her interviewing of Nisei for a history project in 8th grade, her major in Sociology at University of California Berkeley, her former position as a Publicity Officer for Cal’s Nikkei Student Union, to her recent internship in the Programs department of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC). She continues to stay connected to her culture through Taiko drumming, assisting in teaching Bon Odori dance during the summer, and article writing for Nikkei Heritage magazine, with the hopes of pursuing a career in Japanese American non-profit work in the future. What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-town tackles the issue of SF Japantown’s preservation by burning it down to its core elements. It takes technical terms like “cultural appropriation” and “gentrification” in the context of Japantown and humanizes them with the personal experiences, memories, and hopes of locals and J-tells alike—communicating across generational as well as ethnic and racial divides to all that relate to the issues of family, identity, and cultural longevity. As for the importance of preserving Japantown, there is something about being here that makes me instantly happy whenever I visit. We all carry our feelings of cultural pride inside ourselves individually but there is some mysterious thing about being able to travel, to pilgrimage to a place that epitomizes those feelings through its history, which allows us to bask in the parts of ourselves that do not always get to be expressed in our day-to-day routine. I hope to recreate this dual sense of both familiarity and awe for SF Japantown through the performances and events involved in the Suite J-town tour, so that visitors will also feel inspired to engage in the conversation regarding the future of our community. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424151596459-ZBOH6OLT8QMM29MZR1JX/image-asset.png Artists - Celi Tamayo-Lee After my first day of kindergarten I came home to tell my mother of my new definitive plan: “When I grow up, I want to be Japanese”. It was always a joke – what do a Cantonese-Chinese mother and an Ilocano-Filipino father do? They send their daughter to a Japanese bilingual program at the neighborhood elementary school. A 3rd-generation San Franciscan, I am a child and descendant of farmers, businessmen and women, community hosts and caretakers, laborers, cooks, (im)migrants, homemakers, midwives, and artists. I am from an urban generation that has grown up in the polycultural intersections of public schools, cross-town bus rides, chronic after school activities and vibrant summer camps. I am new to identifying as an artist, I’ve spent most hours community organizing. I have a loose background in documentary film, installation art, performance art, experimental film, and eternal passions for singing and dancing. Lately, I’ve been into “social artistry” - facilitating group processes that focus on making the most of people’s time and talents in a socially just, participatory, and ethical way. For me, Suite J-Town is an opportunity to: 1. Generate a creative response to the seeming crisis of gentrification in SF and everywhere 2. Collect stories and shape history 3. Learn about my own community 4. Reflect 5. Access stranger’s emotions 6. Face the past to better understand the complexities of displacement 7. Celebrate resilience 8. Transform as an artist and a person 9. Inspire others 10. Ask: “So what?” 11. Create more visibility for asian-americans 12. Radically imagine what we want https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425027375378-OUF0N5CCAKBRJRRN18J0/suitejtown_ayana_yonesaka_jtell_dancer.jpg Artists - Ayana Yonesaka Since 2009, Ayana Yonesaka has been an active dancer and choreographer in San Francisco. She moved to the Bay Area after 12 years of training in modern dance in her hometown of Sapporo, Japan. After graduating in 2013 with a degree in dance from SFSU, she is now an instructor at the San Francisco Youth Ballet Academy and a dancer with LV Dance Collective. As a choreographer, she has presented multiple pieces that are centered around the beauty of individuals gravitating towards one another for support through hard times. She hopes to continue to create an authentic series of works revolving around this human relationship, and is excited to align her vision with Suite J-Town. What does Suite J-Town mean to me? My unique identity as a Hapa growing up in Sapporo is, without a doubt, the core of my artistic voice and is something I strive to cultivate as I continue to be exposed to other unique voices in San Francisco. Suite J-Town is an opportunity for me to study, connect, and magnify the voices of the Japantown community through the art of movement. I hope to capture J-Town’s untold history and unseen culture, and to uncover the soul of its people through artistic collaboration. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427483751559-XZPRF0KIIUJL8G5TOP4F/kenny-endo-suite-jtown-first-voice.jpg Artists - Kenny Endo, Taiko One of the leading personas in contemporary percussion and rhythm, KENNY ENDO is at the vanguard of the taiko genre, continuing to carve new territory in this Japanese style of drumming. A performer, composer, and teacher of taiko, he has received numerous awards and accolades, including very special recognition in Japan—he was the first foreigner to be honored with a “natori,” a stage name, in Japanese classical drumming. Kenny Endo was a featured artist on the PBS special “Spirit of Taiko” in 2005. He has performed for such musicians as the late Michael Jackson and Prince, opened for The Who, performed a duet with singer Bobby McFerrin, and is featured on the soundtracks for Kayo Hatta’s film “Picture Bride”, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”, and recently worked on James Cameron’s “Avatar”. He has had a day named for him in by the Mayor of Honolulu “Kenny Endo Day”, and was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts for American Masterpieces. He has released 8 CDs of original music. Kenny is a consummate artist, blending Japanese taiko with rhythms influenced by his jazz background and by collaborations with artists from around the world. Kenny's taiko are provided courtesy of Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten. www.kennyendo.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427488687233-FBBWO82PF3VMZSWXM6UX/image-asset.jpeg Artists - Moy Eng, Vocals Moy Eng is a singer and lyricist. Known for her “beautiful and soulful voice,” Moy has performed with wonderful artists including Anthony Brown, John Stowell, Jon Jang, Steve Nakano, Paul Eastburn, and Bill Murphy. As a lyricist, she collaborates with composer, Wayne Wallace. Moy is honored and thrilled to be working again with First Voice.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427859762052-MS2E42WSFBSUZ5C9D6AO/shoko-hikage-koto-suite-jtown-first-voice.jpg Artists - Shoko Hikage, Koto/Vocals Shoko Hikage began playing koto at the age of three. Her first teacher was Chizuga Kimura of the Ikuta-ryu Sokyoku Seigen Kai in Akita Prefecture, Japan. From 1985, she received special training from the 2nd and 3rd IEMOTO Seiga Adachi (hereditary head master of the Ikuta-ryu Sokyoku Seigen Kai). In 1988, Hikage graduated from Takasaki College with a major in koto music. She was then accepted as a special research student (uchideshi) at the Sawai Sokyoku In(Sawai Koto Institute) under Tadao and Kazue Sawai, where she received her master's certificate (kyoshi). Hikage also completed a one-year intensive seminar at the Sawai Sokyoku In. In 1992, she moved to Honolulu, Hawaii to teach koto at the Sawai Kotot Kai Hawaii (Sawai Koto Institute Hawaii branch) and at the University of Hawaii. In 1997, she moved to San Francisco where she continues her concert and teaching activities. Hikage premiered Hyo-shin Na's “Crazy Horse" for Korean Traditional Orchestra and Koto Solo with the National Orchestra of Traditional Instruments in Seoul, Korea in November, 2011. In the Bay Area, she also premiered Hyo-shin Na’s " Night Procession of the Hundred Demons", "Koto Music" and "Koto Ninano". In 2014, Hikage gave a solo recital with a program devoted to Hyo-shin Na's music for koto/bass koto at Buam Arts Hall in Seoul, Korea. The second CD of her playing of Na's music was released will on the Top Arts Label in the fall of 2014. www.ShokoHikage.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432753356756-42RMHVJW0FGCM4O1L9YK/marina-fukushima-suite-jtown-dancer.png Artists - Marina Fukushima, Choreographer/Dancer Marina Fukushima, born in Tokyo, Japan, is a dancer/choreographer based in San Francisco. She graduated with a BFA in Dance from Butler University and received teaching assistantship at the University of Iowa for her MFA in Dance. She has danced with Epiphany Productions, KUNST-STOFF, Mark Foehringer Dance Project, ODC and project agora and toured across the United States and internationally in Germany, Greece, Japan and Peru. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1429567352138-FMHOXIUQ76DVH8RREYW8/masaru-koga-musician.jpg Artists - Mas Koga, Woodwinds/Shakuhachi Originally from Japan and currently based in San Francisco CA, saxophonist and flautist Masaru Koga has been an integral part of the creative music scene, known for his colorful cross-cultural musical palette and innovative approach. He has traveled, recorded, and performed both nationally and internationally with artists such as Akira Tana, Anthony Brown, Mark Izu, Hafez Modirzadeh, Royal Hartigan, Fred Ho, Wayne Wallace, Gail Dobson, and Kat Parra. His recent work includes traveling to Japan with the Otonowa Project on a concert tour where they performed for the survivors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432753161493-KVZPNJSAN79J1ZZ56W1R/john-carlos-perea.jpeg Artists - John-Carlos Perea, Vocals/Bass John-Carlos is an ethnomusicologist and assistant professor in the Department of American Indian Studies. His research interests include the politics of noise and sound studies, urban American Indian lived experiences and cultural productions, music technologies, recording and archiving practices, Native and African American jazz cultures, and the Creek and Kaw saxophonist Jim Pepper. His essays have also been published in MUSICultures (formerly the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music / La Revue de musique folklorique canadienne), the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the Grove Dictionary of American Music.   http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/contact daily 0.75 2015-04-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423872614863-6AXN4Z2EZNC7AKW88EMW/image-asset.jpeg Contact http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/about daily 0.75 2015-04-20 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/j-tells-calendar daily 0.75 2015-03-16 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/j-tells daily 0.75 2015-03-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423426535846-C4CA504KJPL1I6TMLDO1/Aimari+Dreams.jpg J-Tells - Marissa Katarina Bergmann (Aimari) Marissa Katarina Bergmann ( Aimari ) is an emerging artist, photographer, filmmaker, and vocalist based in San Francisco, CA. She graduated from Duke University, receiving a BA in Visual and Media Studies, Documentary Studies, and Photography. Marissa also studied at the Studio Art Centers International Florence once in 2009 and once again in 2010 under a Benenson Award in the Arts. Her personal and collaborative works have been featured in galleries, universities, and film festivals nationally in San Francisco, Oakland, Durham, and Chapel Hill; and internationally in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and Florence, Italy. Marissa is currently an MFA Fine Arts candidate at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. Marissa grew up in the California desert to a Japanese-German family, where she spent a great deal of her time with her Nisei (second generation) grandmother. Memories of the warm desert sun and time spent in her grandmother's house –a place with a golden atmosphere of repair, mending, and healing– are what fuel her work today. Marissa writes: "If the whole world were my grandmother's house, the world would be a better place, a place I am determined to create through my art." What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-Town is a story of resilience that spans many generations – from our ancestors, to our grandparents, parents, and our own selves, and it is a story that will continue far into the future. Suite J-Town is a special opportunity to make art for a cause, art to activate the community, art to lift the soul. In trying times, we remember how important it is to unite and stand together to make our voices heard. As a hapa mixed-race artist, I hope to be able to bring my unique voice, perspective and experience, along with a heart full of energy and enthusiasm, to this beautiful collaboration. Portfolio: www.aimari.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423358792801-0QJD65ELJTO7E0DKB0VK/suitejtown_charlene_kelley_jtell_glitter_artist.jpg J-Tells - Charlene Kelley I am a Glitter Artist creating interesting paintings that sparkle. Influenced by working in graphic design, animation, games, and film. I’ve exhibited in various galleries and art shows around the bay area. I earned a bachelors of science degree for Media Art and Animation from The Art Institute of California - San Francisco. My first solo gallery show “Sweets for the Sweet” at Trickster in Berkeley has made me a favorite returning artist. My work has been part of STUDIO Gallery SF, SF Bazaar Maker Faire, Alternative Press Expo, and Public Works. I continue to search for opportunities to share unique art with others who value true originality. What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-town means I have a link to my forgotten roots and a place to rediscover and explore more about my heritage. Learning a new generation of mixed culture, informed by the past. Portfolio: www.glitterside.com   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424740700346-LRIF5SX8515LGN0MCSCC/junho_kim_jtell_filmmaker_film_video_cinematography.jpg J-Tells - Junho Kim Junho Kim was born on September 28, 1988 in Tacoma, WA to Jaekyu and Younghae Kim. His parents ran several small businesses, including a clothing store, travel agency, and Korean video rental house. It was at the rental house where he made his first cut of film, repairing damaged magnetic strips of VHS tapes. One of his favorite memories from that time was when persimmons would come into a season and his mom’s shop would fill up with huge bags of them. Kim began his current trajectory of filmmaking in 2011, while a student at Duke University, where he studied with David Gatten, Steve Milligan, Josh Gibson, and Bill Brown. He has also collaborated with acclaimed filmmaker, Emiko Omori. Nowadays, he makes videos about technology, science, and design at WIRED Magazine. What does Suite J-Town mean to me? When I think of Suite J-Town, I think about a scene from Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil, where he describes a couple praying for their missing cat, Tora, at "a temple consecrated to cats." He continues to explain how “they had to come there, both of them, under the rain, to perform the rite that would repair the web of time where it had been broken.” That scene captures the essence of what Japantown means to me. It is a place that closes the vast distance between people and their history; a place to perform the old rituals and traditions, bridging the fissures left by time and space. For me, Suite J-Town is a part of those rites—an earnest series of acts to preserve the threads that connect us not only to our past, but also to one another. Portfolio: vimeo.com/junhokim https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424740607613-304EW7XZE9V1IAPRE7OA/suitejtown_eryn_kimura_jtell_japantown_pika_pika.jpg J-Tells - Eryn Kimura “Neither black nor white and neither fully American nor fully Asian, my existence as a fifth generation Asian-American - Chinese-American and Japanese-American - resides in a space of liminality, neither definitely here nor there. Although this identity is powerfully fluid and intricate in its aesthetic beauty and form, my indefinite identity is invisible because it does not fit the conventional, or colonial, binaries. My art brings to light my own vibrant, beautifully-woven, collective history while also articulating the unique diversity and resiliency of the Asian-American experience. Through my pieces, I wish to make the invisible, visible.” - Eryn Kimura What does Suite J-Town mean to me? It's literally everything I have ever wanted to see come from this community, on a beautifully ornate gold platter. Like the west African sankofa, jtown suite is a spiritual return to our collective past while simultaneously building a more inclusive, sustainably vibrant future. Jtown suite is reclamation. Portfolio: www.erynyk.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423859555144-0QPWI6V24PTTCROCA9IP/suitejtown_yuki_maruyama_jtell_artist.jpg J-Tells - Yuki Maruyama Yuki is a Japanese-American artist who grew up in constant transition between her two primary cultures and languages. Her drawings are strongly influenced by the Manga (Japanese comics) she avidly read in her childhood in the US and through her adolescence in Japan. The genre is intimately connected to her dual background; Manga and related forms of popular art have played significant roles in the cultural cross-pollination between the US and Japan, especially in the last three decades. Yuki received her MFA in Drawing and Painting from California College of the Arts in 2004. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, namely at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Southern Exposure, and the LAB in San Francisco; Flux Factory and the Queens Museum of Art in New York City; Theatres des Sens Gallery and Domestic Art Project Yomoyama-So in and near Tokyo, Japan. What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Japantown embodies the complex history of tension, osmosis, and coming together of Japanese and American cultures in San Francisco. Suite J-Town pays tribute its rich and legacy while reflecting upon the future of our city's cultural landscape. As an artist, and as an individual whose personal history is deeply rooted in Japan and the US, I am thankful for the opportunity to intimately explore the story of Nihonmachi and collaborate with its community. Portfolio: yukimaruyama.wordpress.com https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1423595720790-P7XYGL3XYX6SJ2U3B5YB/suitejtown_elena_nielsen_jtell_odori.jpg J-Tells - Elena Harumi Nielsen Elena Nielsen is a hapa-American born in Southern California and raised in the East Bay. She has been active in Japanese-American community work since childhood, participating in volunteer events like Obon and Mochitsuki at the Diablo Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. Her experiences with her cultural heritage have inspired everything from her interviewing of Nisei for a history project in 8th grade, her major in Sociology at University of California Berkeley, her former position as a Publicity Officer for Cal’s Nikkei Student Union, to her recent internship in the Programs department of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC). She continues to stay connected to her culture through Taiko drumming, assisting in teaching Bon Odori dance during the summer, and article writing for Nikkei Heritage magazine, with the hopes of pursuing a career in Japanese American non-profit work in the future. What does Suite J-Town mean to you? Suite J-town tackles the issue of SF Japantown’s preservation by burning it down to its core elements. It takes technical terms like “cultural appropriation” and “gentrification” in the context of Japantown and humanizes them with the personal experiences, memories, and hopes of locals and J-tells alike—communicating across generational as well as ethnic and racial divides to all that relate to the issues of family, identity, and cultural longevity. As for the importance of preserving Japantown, there is something about being here that makes me instantly happy whenever I visit. We all carry our feelings of cultural pride inside ourselves individually but there is some mysterious thing about being able to travel, to pilgrimage to a place that epitomizes those feelings through its history, which allows us to bask in the parts of ourselves that do not always get to be expressed in our day-to-day routine. I hope to recreate this dual sense of both familiarity and awe for SF Japantown through the performances and events involved in the Suite J-town tour, so that visitors will also feel inspired to engage in the conversation regarding the future of our community. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1424151596459-ZBOH6OLT8QMM29MZR1JX/image-asset.png J-Tells - Celi Tamayo-Lee After my first day of kindergarten I came home to tell my mother of my new definitive plan: “When I grow up, I want to be Japanese”. It was always a joke – what do a Cantonese-Chinese mother and an Ilocano-Filipino father do? They send their daughter to a Japanese bilingual program at the neighborhood elementary school. A 3rd-generation San Franciscan, I am a child and descendant of farmers, businessmen and women, community hosts and caretakers, laborers, cooks, (im)migrants, homemakers, midwives, and artists. I am from an urban generation that has grown up in the polycultural intersections of public schools, cross-town bus rides, chronic after school activities and vibrant summer camps. I am new to identifying as an artist, I’ve spent most hours community organizing. I have a loose background in documentary film, installation art, performance art, experimental film, and eternal passions for singing and dancing. Lately, I’ve been into “social artistry” - facilitating group processes that focus on making the most of people’s time and talents in a socially just, participatory, and ethical way. For me, Suite J-Town is an opportunity to: 1. Generate a creative response to the seeming crisis of gentrification in SF and everywhere 2. Collect stories and shape history 3. Learn about my own community 4. Reflect 5. Access stranger’s emotions 6. Face the past to better understand the complexities of displacement 7. Celebrate resilience 8. Transform as an artist and a person 9. Inspire others 10. Ask: “So what?” 11. Create more visibility for asian-americans 12. Radically imagine what we want https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1425027375378-OUF0N5CCAKBRJRRN18J0/suitejtown_ayana_yonesaka_jtell_dancer.jpg J-Tells - Ayana Yonesaka Since 2009, Ayana Yonesaka has been an active dancer and choreographer in San Francisco. She moved to the Bay Area after 12 years of training in modern dance in her hometown of Sapporo, Japan. After graduating in 2013 with a degree in dance from SFSU, she is now an instructor at the San Francisco Youth Ballet Academy and a dancer with LV Dance Collective. As a choreographer, she has presented multiple pieces that are centered around the beauty of individuals gravitating towards one another for support through hard times. She hopes to continue to create an authentic series of works revolving around this human relationship, and is excited to align her vision with Suite J-Town. What does Suite J-Town mean to me? My unique identity as a Hapa growing up in Sapporo is, without a doubt, the core of my artistic voice and is something I strive to cultivate as I continue to be exposed to other unique voices in San Francisco. Suite J-Town is an opportunity for me to study, connect, and magnify the voices of the Japantown community through the art of movement. I hope to capture J-Town’s untold history and unseen culture, and to uncover the soul of its people through artistic collaboration. http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/participate daily 0.75 2015-03-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427137907454-4YEBKMAZ5N8FBRAS55IP/image-asset.jpeg Participate http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/images daily 0.75 2015-04-20 http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/press daily 0.75 2015-04-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427137956496-9MC03XATTJU216B7EVAW/image-asset.jpeg For Press https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427767545975-GS5ZDDCMBNUCW1RI79NM/image-asset.jpeg For Press - Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427406374746-YE462EQG28ICYXP5STU7/Mu+Image+05+music+dance.jpg For Press - Marina Fukushima and Masaru Koga Performers in A Walk Through Time, part of Suite J-Town: The Art of Resilience https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427406351492-U9QLD7XPQUPNU2S0LVM8/Nancy_Hom_Mandala_Chinatown_San_Francisco_Oakland.jpg For Press - Nancy Hom's Chinatown Mandala https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427406363208-NF9K0M8F6I5WTX60NDSQ/janice-mirikitani-cecil-williams-cultures-of-resilience.jpg For Press - Janice Mirikitani and Cecil Williams In front of International Hotel during Redevelopment circa 1962-1978 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427488252697-0VF1JUTKZVTXV87SC6DU/1.Helen%26Gunjiro.jpg For Press https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427406548769-OUIX05V4IER70117GNSE/suite-jtown-first-voice-kimochi-inc-japantown-community-calligraphy-seniors.png For Press - Grandmother’s hands at Kimochi Home Documented during community immersion in Japantown, photo by Marissa Katarina Bergmann https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427488410254-3WREJ09FZ31FWE1IVRZ0/7.Sadae.jpg For Press https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1427488519900-R4B8V9XWAXB5GRA6T0IC/Suite+J-Town.JPG For Press http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/donate daily 0.75 2015-04-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1428100314994-30M6TNC8LA03SSPCMJ9Q/image-asset.jpeg Donate http://suitejtown.squarespace.com/event-overview daily 0.75 2015-06-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432847564474-XXX07270TQUICBY7G16X/image-asset.jpeg Events https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432849304628-U8UMYXQP8Y94TKDZUNHG/image-asset.jpeg Events https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432847620699-0POG1Z34IL4K76SZPMH3/image-asset.png Events https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432847403081-PONHQB5BUKPKGVVFJBIO/image-asset.png Events https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432848457509-F6GT3R2EQGDIO54VNFX3/image-asset.png Events https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1433786416484-CJPBK55LNSITFX7HGWT7/image-asset.jpeg Events https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54b9a385e4b06fad9b95c5ee/1432848822808-NYY53VDRBOU82E4AIC7G/13.jpg Events