Brenda Wong Aoki

Playwright | Performer | Storyteller

Biography

Brenda Wong Aoki is a storyteller, anthologized playwright, producer, artistic director, and performer. Her song/dance/dramas are drawn from her family’s 127-year history in San Francisco and the Bay Area, Kabuki legends, ghost stories, and her personal life experience. Known for her agility across disciplines, she creates monodramas rooted in traditional storytelling, eastern & western dance, and music. Her sensei is Living Treasure, Nomura Mansaku, a Kyogen master; she also studied Noh with Nomura Shiro, who is a Cultural Intangible Property. It is extremely rare for a woman (and an American) to study with masters of this caliber. Her other teachers/coaches/mentors include stage director, choreographer, performer, and former director of Theatre of Yugen, Yuriko Doi, and longtime director, Jael Weisman of Dell’Arte Players and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Her partner and principal collaborator is composer Mark Izu.

Brenda Wong Aoki grew up the eldest daughter of six children, in a working-class neighborhood of mixed-race families just like her’s. Of Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Scottish ancestry, her work explores the fundamental hybridity of U.S. culture. She is an award-winning, internationally renowned storyteller, playwright, producer, director, and performer. Known for her agility across disciplines, she creates works for theater, symphony, contemporary dance, world music, taiko, jazz ensemble, live performance with film & interactive museum installation. Her works draw from her training in Noh & Kyogen, her lived experience and her family’s 127-year history in San Francisco. Her awards include Hollywood-Dramalogue, Critics Circle, Dramatist Guild, ASCAP and INDIE Awards, and fellowships from the NEA and the Japanese Government. As the first nationally recognized Asian Pacific storyteller in the U.S., Aoki’s work is part of the American Folklife Collection at the Library of Congress. In 1997 she co-founded First Voice, one of only two organizations in the nation dedicated to presenting, producing and perpetuating the stories and new genre performance of intercultural people. Brenda has been an artist in residence at over 100 universities world-wide. She was a UC Regents Scholar, taught the first Asian American Women's Studies Class at SF State and is a founding faculty member of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University. In 2024, she premiered Soul of the City, a Hewlett 50 Theater Commission.

Aoki’s work combines Eastern and Western narratives and theatrical traditions such as noh, kyogen, commedia dell’arte, modern dance, Japanese drumming, and American jazz. Most of her performances express themes of history, mixed race, home, gender, and mythology. Her multi-disciplinary works include: Soul of the City (2024, world premiere 2023), presented at the Presidio Theater; Aunt Lily’s Flowerbook: 100 Years of Legalized Racism (2017), presented as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival Fort Mason Center for the Arts; Suite J-Town (2015) an 18-month multigenerational, multicultural, interdisciplinary festival of events and exhibits celebrating the 110-year history of Japantown; MU (2013), presented at the Jewish Community Center San Francisco and the Krannert Center for The Arts at the University Of Illinois, Urbana and the McCallum Theater in Palm Desert; The Most Beautiful Girl in the World (2012), for two dancers, sho and storyteller, presented at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; When the Catfish Dances (2011), commemorating the Tsunami and disaster in Japan for KQED TV; The Queen’s Garden (1992, 2011), presented by Climate Theater and San Diego Repertory Theater and published in Contemporary Plays by Women of Color (Routledge Press, London); Legend of Morning Glory (2009), a play for dance, storyteller and taiko ensemble based on a story given to Aoki by Pete Seeger; Return of the Sun (2009), a work commissioned by the Ethnic Dance Festival and created for dance ensembles from Korea, India, Peru, and Mexico presented at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco; Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend (1998, 2002, 2007), developed at San Jose Repertory Theatre, originally directed by Diane Rodriguez with dramaturgical support from Luis Alfaro and Joan Holden, produced by the Dell’Arte Players and the American representative to the Adelaide International Festival in Australia, and featured in the KTVU documentary, San Francisco in the 1920’s; Obake: Tales of Spirits Past and Present (1998, 2005), presented at the Kennedy Center and on Broadway at the New Victory Theater; Mermaid (1997), performed by the Torrance and Berkeley Symphonies, commissioned by Kent Nagano; Kuan-yin: Our Lady of Compassion (2002), performed at the Hong Kong Cultural Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Esplanade in Singapore, directed by Shu Wing Tang and featuring gagaku master Togi Suenobu; Random Acts (1994), presented at the Dallas Theater Center and other national touring venues; and The Soul of the Great Bell (1985), presented at the Montgomery Theater with San Jose Taiko.

All of Aoki’s work incorporates live music composed by her partner, Mark Izu, with whom she co-founded First Voice, a nonprofit organization, in 1997; Aoki and Izu’s Kabuki Cabarets (2010, 2011) were presented at the San Jose Jazz Festival, Kuumbwa, and Yoshi’s San Francisco.

The first nationally recognized Asian Pacific storyteller in the U.S., Aoki’s work is part of the American Folk Life Collection at the Library of Congress. Aoki performs regularly at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. She is the featured storyteller in Oral Tradition Through Time (Houghton Mifflin/ McDougal-Littell, New York, 1996.) Brenda’s book, Mermaid Meat: The Secret to Immortality, is made up of stories for performance (Belly to Belly, San Francisco, 2009.) Her monodramas are included in Extreme Exposure (Jo Bonney, Ed., Theater Communications Group, New York, 2000) and Plays by Women of Color (Routledge Press, London, 1996.) She has recorded with Anthony Brown, Christopher Yohmei Blaisdel, and Basque composer Kepa Junkera, and she was the featured performer in Jefferson Starship’s music video No Way Out (1984 Best Music Video of the Year.)

A curriculum developer and educator, Aoki is a founding faculty member of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University and has been an artist in residence at such institutions as the Smithsonian, Duke University, Kenyon College, Wesleyan, Oberlin College, International House, Tokyo, and Sapporo University. Her plays are archived at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a member of ASCAP and the Dramatist Guild. She is the co-founder and artistic director of First Voice and currently is a board member of California Humanities.

Aoki has been awarded a Critic’s Circle Award, four Hollywood Drama-logue awards, ASCAP Plus Awards, two INDIE Awards for best spoken-word recording. In 2013, she received the Inspirational Leadership in the Performing Arts award from San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. Her plays have been commissioned and supported by the U.S. Congressional Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, Dramatists Guild, the Asian Arts Council, the Japan Foundation, MAP Fund, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the California Arts Council, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation. She and Mark Izu were the first Wattis Artists-in-Residence at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 1999.

List of Works

2023 (World Premier) Soul of the City & 2024 Soul of the City a live-filmed performance celebrating San Francisco's Asian American roots. A Storyteller (Brenda Wong Aoki) takes us on a journey to find the Soul of San Francisco. Four precious talismans - a jade bracelet, a fan, a necklace, and a music box - the touchstones of her life, guide her. Based on autobiographical stories of her mixed ethnic family tree, the objects, like time capsules, reveal her rich family history and weave it into the tapestry of the soul of San Francisco. Each of us has a story. Our stories connect with one another and over time, these stories become one big story. This story lives on, long after its storytellers are gone and becomes the "Soul of the City”. World premiere and filming Presidio Theater San Francisco

2022 Songs for J-town, Beyond time and place, the essence of a people transformed through music, poetry and story. Offerings to the Sun Goddess, praise songs to the ancestors: Issei courage, Nisei resilience, Sansei activism, Yonsei determination, with transmissions to our Gosei, Hapa children and the Shin-Issei. Celebrating kinship with the Harlem of the West and the Fillmore Filipinos, Songs for J-town is a Japanese American Jazz concert dedicated to our grandchildren’s children.

2019 J-town Culture Bearers, curator, narrator & producer of a four-part series of intergenerational, multidisciplinary, Black, Japanese and multiracial artists presenting performances in pop-up store fronts and community cultural spaces in Japantown, San Francisco to strengthen Japanese community spirit as it faces eviction in 2021, when the malls are put up for sale.

2018 People of the Tags, inaugural artist in residence at the Riverside Art Museum, six month residency resulting in a site specific interactive performance with the Wendy Maruyama E09066 Installation interweaving first person account stories collected from members of the local community about the Incarceration of all people of Japanese ancestry on the west coast in the 1940’s.

2018 Japanese American Home Movies to Light, 30 minute oratorio for jazz ensemble written/narrated by Aoki with music composed/performed by Mark Izu on Contra bass/sho featuring projected home movies of Japanese American families 1930’s to 1940’s before and after the Incarceration with 93 year old Japanese American big band pianist George Yamasaki, saxophone/shakuhachi Masaru Koga, koto master Shoko Hikage, bass flute/bass saxophone Jim Norton, vocalist Moy Eng, drum set/taiko Jimi Nakagawa. Premiered at the Herbst Theater on San Francisco Music Day and commissioned by the Center for Asian American Media.

2017 Aunt Lily’s Flowerbook: 100 Years of Legalized Racism, 90-minute monodrama with music composed by Emmy-winning musician Mark Izu, featuring koto master Shoko Hikage, personal family histories woven from memories recorded in a recently discovered family diary tracking over 100 years of history in the American West. From the Transcontinental Railroad, to WWII's Japanese American internment camps and 442nd Infantry Regiment, to San Francisco hippies and through today. Premiered at Fort Mason Center for the Arts as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival. Toured to University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Ware Center Lancaster PA, remount Herbst Theater CAAM Fest 2018.

2015 Suite J-Town, an 18-month multigenerational, multicultural, interdisciplinary festival of events and exhibits celebrating the 110-year history of Japantown. Aoki directed 10 emerging artists, 26 community organizations with a total of 8,500 direct participants. She also curated a large multi-use gallery space in the East Mall with established and emerging API mixed media artists, artifacts from the first Buddhist church in America dating from the 1930’s, photo exhibit, video installation, commissioned a 10’ x 10’ mandala made of original artworks from members of the community and an interactive Prayer Pagoda.

2013 MU, a full-length dance theater work nominated for an Izzie Award with world music ensemble, premiered at the Jewish Community Center San Francisco and the Krannert Center for The Arts at the University of Illinois, Urbana and the McCallum Theater in Palm Desert.

2012 The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, work for two dancers, sho, and storyteller, San Francisco Conservatory of Music; music composed by Mark Izu.

2011 When the Catfish Dances, work for storyteller, contra bass and Sho to commemorate the Tsunami and disaster in Japan, KQED TV. Music composed by Mark Izu and Shinji Eshima.

2010 Kabuki Cabaret, a full-length program of Japanese ghost stories with Japanese American jazz composed by Mark Izu. Presented at Yoshi’s San Francisco, San Jose Jazz Festival, and Kuumbwa Jazz Club.

2009 Return of the Sun, full-length show with 40 performers with music composed by Mark Izu. Commissioned by World Arts West for premiere at the 2009 Ethnic Dance Festival; presented at the Montgomery Theater, San Jose and the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

2008 Legend of Morning Glory, full-length oratorio for taiko ensemble and contemporary dancers, with music composed by Mark Izu. Supported by the 2007 US/JAPAN Friendship Commission, for premiere at the Friend Center for the Arts, Jewish Community Center of San Francisco; also presented at Cal State Monterey.

2005 Tales of Love and Passion, a full-length monodrama with Grandmaster Seiichi Tanaka and music composed by Mark Izu; commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission, premiered at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts San Francisco.

2002 Kuan-yin: Our Lady of Compassion, a full-length monodrama for storyteller and musical ensemble, with music composed by Mark Izu with Gagaku Master Suenobu. Commissioned by the Hong Kong Cultural Center and performed at the Esplanade in Singapore and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

1998 Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend, a full-length monodrama with contra bass, directed by Diane Rodriguez Bay Area Playwrights festival, San Jose Rep’s New American Playwrights Festival, Solo Mio Festival at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Music composed by Mark Izu

1997 Mermaid, a 22-minute monodrama with symphony composed by Mark Izu, conducted by Maestro Kent Nagano and performed by the Berkeley Symphony, directed by Jael Weisman. Premiered at Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley.

1994 Random Acts, a one-woman show, directed by Jael Weisman, commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation for premiere at La Peña in Berkeley, with additional performances at the Field Museum in Chicago, the National Storytelling Festival (Jonesborough, TN), Dallas Theatre Center, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

1992 The Soul of the Great Bell, a multidisciplinary taiko collaboration with monodrama, composed by Mark Izu for San Jose Taiko, premiere at San Jose Repertory Theater.

1992 The Queen’s Garden, a monodrama with jazz ensemble, directed by Jael Weisman, for premiere at the Solo Mio Festival in San Francisco; also presented at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, the Asia Society in New York City, East West Center in Honolulu, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., and Highways in Santa Monica.

1990 Tales of the Pacific Rim, storytelling for children directed by Jael Weisman, premiered on the Solo Mio Festival in San Francisco, also performed at Kennedy Center, the Black Storytelling Festival in New York, and the Vancouver Folk Festival.

1988 Obake: Some Japanese Ghosts, a solo theater work, directed by Jael Weisman, premiered at the Solo Mio Festival in San Francisco, also presented at San Diego Repertory Theatre, New Victory Theatre in New York, the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, and in Sapporo, Japan.

1988 Tokyo Form and Spirit Exhibition: “Invocation,” a duet performance piece with composer/musician Mark Izu, presented at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

1987 Seven Steps to Go, a full-length play written for SoundSeen, a Zen cabaret performance art quartet of two dancer/actors and two musicians, directed by Jael Weisman, presented at Life on the Water Theatre in San Francisco.

1986 Type O, a full-length play written for SoundSeen, directed by Jael Weisman, presented at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco.

1985 Whisperings, a full-length performance duet with composer/bassist Mark Izu commissioned by the Long Beach Museum of Modern Art and Ohana Cultural Center in Oakland, presented at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

1979-85 AJI (Aoki/Jordan Improvisations), poetry and dance performances presented throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

List of Past Presenters

“…stories, ancient and new… dominated by women battling the odds with a strength bordering on obsession.”

— The Washington Post

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Aunt Lily's Flowerbook: 100 Years of Legalized Racism

TRUE TALES OF RESILIENCE

Emmy winning musician Mark Izu accompanies his wife and "America's foremost Asian storyteller" Brenda Wong Aoki to share touching and personal family histories with universal and contemporary appeal. The two acclaimed artists weave memories recorded in a recently discovered family diary with further flourish, story and song tracking over 100 years of history in the American West. From the Transcontinental Railroad, to WWII's Japanese American internment camps and 442nd Infantry Regiment, to San Francisco hippies and through today. Joined by koto master Shoko Hikage, the performance offer a poignant glimpse of our shared history and demands it not be repeated.