“Japanese taiko with Western drum set; Japanese sho with saxophone... always at the forefront of artistic voices, Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu”

— Rafu Shimpo

“I like performers whose every measured gesture and struck attitude shows their training and polish. But I save my respect for people like Brenda Wong Aoki. An actor and dancer with great technical skill... she focuses tightly on the stories she tells. And her story - about her attempts to find herself in rootless America, the first-generation daughter of a Chinese mother and Japanese father - is one that any American searching for herself or himself (which is most of us, I think) will find fascinating and inspirational.”

— Critics Choice Chicago Weekly Reader

“TREMENDOUSLY MOVING...
Wong Aoki’s skill as a storyteller lies in navigating between the big and small stories to create a
TOPOGRAPHY OF EMOTIONS AND CONNECTIONS.”

”Takes on the tales of struggle, sorrow and achievement – giving personality, individuality and dignity to communities that Donald Trump’s America would rather forget or demonize.”

— Asia Times

Soul of The City

WORLD PREMIERE

September 30th and October 1st | Presidio Theatre

San Francisco, CA

JOIN US IN A WORLD PREMIERE!

“Soul of The City” is a new work by the nation’s first Asian American storyteller, Brenda Wong Aoki, with original music by Mark Izu, Masaru Koga, and Derek Nakamoto. Told through storytelling, multimedia, live music and dance, “Soul of The City” is a performance ritual for us all. Brenda tells true stories from the nation’s first Chinatown and Japantown based on her family’s 132-year history against the backdrop of today.

Written by Brenda Wong Aoki

Original music by Masaru Koga, Mark Izu, and Derek Nakamoto

Directed by David Furumoto

Music Direction by Masaru Koga

Multimedia Direction by Wendy Slick

Performed by Brenda Wong Aoki, devorah major, Caroline Cabading, Masaru Koga, Jimi Nakagawa, Shoko Hikage, Kenneth Nash, Sara Sithi-Amnuai

Costumes by Lydia Tanji

Lighting by Patty Ann Farrell

Multimedia by Olivia Ting, Andi Wong, and Mark Shigenaga

Soul of The City follows a storyteller who has no more stories to tell. Her husband is sick, her boy has moved away, and nobody is buying the stories she’s trying to tell. Pursued by demons and haunted by ghosts, the storyteller embarks on a journey to find the soul of San Francisco. This multimedia music drama is a ritual performance. Rooted in traditional Japanese theater and music and infused with contemporary spoken word and Asian American Jazz, Soul of The City reveals the divine in us all.

The audience is invited to dress in celebratory attire and will gather in the garden to put prayers, photographs or talisman on the Soul of The City sacred tree. A Buddhist priest will bless us with a purification ceremony and willing participants will be given temple bells to call the ancestors. We will then go inside the theater. The audience will witness a ritual performance of jazz, storytelling, and poetry that is accompanied by photographs and images of Brenda’s family in San Francisco since the 1800’s. At the conclusion of the performance we will return to the garden for refreshments, renewed, recharged and inspired to carry on.

Tickets

Family Photos

Receiving the Hewlett 50 Playwright Commission is the greatest honor of my life, and a responsibility to truth tell that I do not take lightly. I received this award prior to the pandemic and was going to create a very different work, but life intervened. My husband and I were stalked for miles in Golden Gate Park by a man calling us the “Virus!” Four of our friends were beaten up, one so badly he almost died. People were calling Mark and I from all over the country asking us here in San Francisco, the birthplace of Asia America, for guidance as assaults spiked nationally. The violence continued and spread to all old people, women and children in general. Covid continued and performing artists spent years without work. I got so stressed out that I ended up in the hospital.

That is where this work, Soul of The City, really began.

In the hospital I couldn’t talk, which is very distressing for a storyteller. It wasn’t that I couldn’t actually talk, it was that I didn’t know how to respond because people’s emotions were so much louder than their words. That’s when I realized that I could talk to anyone whose language I didn’t speak! It was wonderful! I’d look into their eyes (the windows of the soul) and use my face and hands to show them how I felt, and we understood each other perfectly.

Outside the window of my hospital room was a gigantic pine tree. One day when I was feeling blue I looked at her and realized she was trying to talk to me (Aoki means pine tree.) The tree’s long beautiful needles danced in the breeze as if soothing me and when I was depressed, they shook like pom-poms cheering me on.

I looked at this huge mama tree and understood that our roots connect us to the earth and the earth connects us to one another. The only thing that heals is love and the greatest love is mother’s love because we women are the creators of the next generation so God, The Creator, must be a Mother.

This work, Soul of The City, is presented to you with some of my dearest friends - masters of their crafts with nothing to prove but lots to share. We are warriors - but not soldiers. We are Soulgers. We know why we are here, on this planet, at this moment in time, and we know what we must do. We will do it ‘til we die. And even after because like all of us, our bodies return to the earth, our souls go back to Source and the actions we put into motion continue.

-Brenda Wong Aoki, San Francisco 2023

Rehearsal Photos

About the Artists

Featuring the haunting eloquence of writer-performer **Brenda Wong Aoki** with the silk and iron tones of composer-contra bass player **Mark Izu** - artists in the vanguard of cultural metamorphosis. Their original story-dramas are rooted in Gagaku, Nohgaku, contemporary theater, personal story, history and legend. Izu is listed in The Grove Dictionary of Music as a seminal leader of Asian American Jazz. Aoki is the America’s first nationally recognized Asian American storyteller. Both Aoki and Izu come from founding families of San Francisco and San Jose J-towns, two of the three remaining Japantowns in the U.S. Their work has garnered multiple Hollywood-Dramalogue Awards, NEA Fellowships, Critic Circle Awards, INDIE Awards, Dramatist Guild, ASCAP awards and an Emmy. Shoko Hikage, Mark Izu, Brenda Wong Aoki are world-class artists who continue to teach, tour and perform.

**David Furumoto** was born and raised in Hawaii. Of mixed heritage, he has followed artistic pursuits from both sides of his parents in theatre, music and dance. Holding a BA and MFA in theatre from University of Hawaii, during his studies he was supremely fortunate to study with master performers of different traditional Asian theatre forms such as Chinese musical drama, Kathakali, Kyogen, No and Kabuki. With particular focus on Kabuki he was in several English language premieres at the Kennedy Theatre. He also holds a professional title from the Onoe school of Classical Japanese dance. After being a professor in the theatre department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 22 years he is now a professor emeritus. He is a proud member of both AEA and SAG-AFTRA and has performed and directed at several theatre companies across the country. Along with the Asian side, he has a great love for Celtic music and plays the pipes. Having lived in San Francisco for about 4 years in the early ‘90s, he has a great fondness for the City and has had the pleasure of performing at the Berkeley Rep, the Theatre of Yugen, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Marin Theatre Co.
He would like to do a shout out to the University Wisconsin Hospital’s lung transplant center as they are the reason why I’m still here being able to work on this great piece by Brenda and with all the gifted performers working on Soul of the City.

**Caroline Cabading**, a 4th generation Filipina-San Franciscan, is an actively performing jazz musician and steward of pre-colonial Philippine music. Her work is strongly informed by her connection to tribal culture bearers in the Philippines as well as her engagement with a Filipino community that has been contributing to the Bay Area since the turn of the century. Born and raised in San Francisco’s Fillmore district, Caroline’s family first came to the City in 1904 and her connection to Historic Manilatown began with her grandfather who lived on Kearny Street as a young immigrant laborer. Caroline’s compositions have been commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council, Zoo Labs and New Music USA.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, **Jimi Nakagawa** joined the San Francisco Taiko Dojo, directed by Grand Master Seiichi Tanaka and became a performing member in the late 80's. In Japan, Jimi studied and performed Taiko with Sukeroku Daiko Hozonkai and Master Kenjiro Maru of the Wakayama style festival music. Also, he studied "tsuzumi (a Japanese hand drum)" with Master Saburo Mochizuki to become "Natori (accredited master)" and received a name, 望月武響 (Bukyo Mochizuki). In addition to Japanese traditional music, Jimi is a jazz drummer who studied with Robert Kaufman, a former professor at the Berklee College of Music. He is one of the founding members of Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble, a San Francisco Bay Area based taiko group and played in the group for 11 years.
Jimi has collaborated with world renowned musicians like Peter Erskine, Nguyen Le, Frank Martin, Van Anh Vo, Akira Tana & Otonowa to name a few. Jimi's refined but driving stickwork has been featured in film, video and on stage.

**Sara Sithi-Amnuai** is a multi-instrumentalist (on trumpet, sheng, and some handcrafted electronic instruments) based in Los Angeles. Her interest in the connection between culture and gesture has led her to build gesture-based musical interfaces - one of those is Nami, a custom built glove interface designed for live musical performance inspired by Nikkei community research. She has presented her work at the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, received the 2021 Nikkei Music Reclamation Fellowship with Sustainable Little Tokyo, 2019 ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award, and has performed with the Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra.

**Olivia Ting** is a digital multimedia artist whose interest in visual communication as a storytelling vehicle about the human condition brought her to work in collaboration with movement-based performers. In addition to theater work, Olivia continues to work as a graphic and video media designer; her clients include the San Francisco Dance Center, San Francisco Performances, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum, and the Oakland Museum of California. Olivia will serve as the Video Projection Designer for *OurTown*.

**Mark Shigenaga** is a third-generation Japanese American with a passion for supporting community activities through photography. This pursuit has deepened an understanding of his heritage and enabled a connection to many cultures. A chance alignment at the 2013 San Jose Obon led to a commission from Mark and Brenda to photograph their work MU later that year, followed by continued documentation of many First Voice performances. While his photographic style continues to evolve, he is most inspired by images that portray the vibrancy and Soul of our collective communities, whether through the sharing of various art forms, celebrations, or remembrances.

New York City based wind instrumentalist **Mas Koga** is a long time friend of First Voice who has also worked with luminaries such as Akira Tana, Anthony Brown, Wayne Wallace, Kenny Endo, Kat Parra, and the late Fred Ho, as well as his mentors Hafez Modirzadeh and royal hartigan.
He has toured domestically and internationally, most notably as a member of Otonowa (www.otonowa- usa.com), visiting Japan yearly (prior to the pandemic) to support the communities affected by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, and the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake.
As a Shin-Issei who grew up as a Third Culture Kid, his music encompasses the many cultural traditions that he has been touched by, and the worldview developed though diverse life experiences.
His first recorded album as a band leader titled “Flower Fire” was released in 2018.
www.maskoga.com

**devorah major** served as San Francisco’s Third Poet Laureate. She is a poetry performance artist who performs her work nationally and internationally with and without musicians. She has worked with First Voice on several projects, most recently in Mark Izu’s Song of San Francisco. She has two poetry/jazz CDs with Daughters of Yam and is featured on several others. She has seven poetry books, the most recently califia’s daughter, two novels, four chapbooks and a host of short stories, essays, and poems in anthologies and periodicals.

Koto (Japanese zither) player **Shoko Hikage** is grateful to have studied with wonderful teachers, Chizuga Kimura, Iemoto Seiga Adachi, Tadao and Kazue Sawai and more. She, Mark, and Brenda have worked together on Aunt Lily’s Flower book (2017~) Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend (2016), Suite J-town (2015), Mu (2013), Kabuki Jazz Cabaret (2011) and more projects. For Offerings to Mother Earth (2020), Shoko assembled an unusual Koto tuning form using the pitch of E, A and H (B) — the inspiration of her piece, “E - A - H,” coming from the combination of the sound (pitch) and space.

Internationally renowned producer, arranger, musician, author, and teacher, **Kenneth Nash** is creating some of today's most rhythmically compelling music. Breaking out into a superbly syncopated realm all his own, his high energy innovative playing has earned him a reputation as one of the foremost percussionists in jazz and contemporary music. Fusing jazz, pop and world-music elements, he creates an effervescent style of music.
Kenneth Nash has composed and arranged percussion pieces for the Joffery Ballet, The San Francisco Opera & American Conservatory Theatre. He has written and performed music for films, television and theatre.
Nash received the Isadora Duncan Award, In the same year his book Rhythms Talk was released worldwide in three language’s.
Kenneth Nash has performed or recorded on hundreds of recordings and productions with such artist as : Herbie Hancock, Pointer Sisters, Weather Report, Sergio Mendes, Dizzy Gillespie, Ahmad Jamal, Freddie Hubbard, Grover Washington Jr., B.B.King, Andy Narrell, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Bobby McFerrin, Roy Haynes, Ira Sullivan, Airto, Cannonball Adderly, John Handy, Kenny Burrell, Gary Bartz, Merle Saunders, Bobby Hutcherson, Andre Crouch, Walter and Edwin Hawkins, Tramaine Hawkins, Art Pepper, Johnny Griffin, Michael White, Patrice Rushen, Raoul DeSouz, John Lee Hooker, J.J. Johnson, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Clark, Woody Herman, Stan Getz, Lionel Hampton, Sadao Watanabe, Joe Henderson, Azar Lawrence, Norman Connors, Streamlinetrio/ featuring Kenneth Nash, Lionel Hampton

**Lydia Tanji** is thrilled to be working with Brenda and Mark again. Past productions include: Kuan Yin, Mermaid, and Type O. Other theater credits: ACT, Berkeley Rep. Theater, Theatreworks, Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Syracuse Stage, Arena Stage, Huntington Theater, Guthrie, Indiana Rep., Dallas Theater, Children’s Theater, Seattle Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mark Taper Forum, and South Coast Rep. Film credits include: The Joy Luck Club, Hot Summer Winds, Dim Sum, Thousand Pieces of Gold, and The Wash. She also co-produced Vanishing Chinatown: The World of The May’s Photo Studio which aired on KQED and KVIE.

Fifth-generation Chinese American Andi Wong has designed graphics and multimedia for First Voice projects, including J-Town Culture Bearers (2019), Earth Dance Offerings(2020), Story Circle of the Japanese Diaspora (2021-2023), Song for J-Town (2022) and Soul of the City (2023). Her creative partners include Marcus Shelby, The Last Hoisan Poets (Genny Lim, Flo Oy Wong and Nellie Wong), Del Sol Quartet, and the Internet Archive. She is currently working with Contemporary Asian Theater Scene (CATS) on “Drawn from Life: The Creative Legacy of Flo Oy Wong,” a short film premiering at the 2023 Silicon Valley Asian Pacific FilmFest in October.