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Donald E. Osborne, Director California Artists Management 564 Market Street, Suite 420, San Francisco, CA 94104-5412 415 362-2787 / fax: 415 362-2838 / Skype: calartistsdon / Email |
Susan Endrizzi Morris, Director California Artists Management P.O. Box 2479, Mendocino, CA 95460-2479 707-937-4787 / cell: 415-302-1083 / Skype: sueendrizzi / Email |
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 Download Bio Listen Website |
Brenda Wong Aoki
Full-Evening Projects |
“Aoki encompasses the comic and the tragic making relevant and
magical even the most faraway tales” – Los Angeles Times, Critics Choice
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. She is currently developing a pageant
play with world musicians and dancers about the lost continent of MU to premiere
in 2012.
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 1920’s. 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.
Brenda's longtime collaborator is her husband EMMY award winning composer
composer Mark
Izu,
who is known for his agility in cross-cultural instrumentation and ability to
mix multiple genres of music into an exciting whole. Izu plays the contra bass,
as well as several traditional Asian instruments. He is the only
professional sho player
in North America.
Now Touring
The following performances are currently being offered for
touring:
Kabuki
Jazz Cabaret: Japanese Ghost Legends
The
haunting eloquence of Brenda Wong Aoki's ghost stories
Masterfully performed in concert with Asian Jazz pioneer composer Mark Izu,
Featuring the thunder drums of Janet Koike & PJ Hirabayashi,
Multi-percussionisteast-west jazz veteran Anthony Brown
Koto extraordinaire Shoko Hikage and Mas Koga on sax and soulful shakuhachi
Stories include both old and new works by Brenda.
In the five plus decades I have watched dance theatre, such versatility is rare.
Such power and restraint are also seldom seen in these decades of lengthy
self-indulgence. Yoko Tahara, familiar with the Japanese Ghost tradition,
remarked, "It was a tour de force." For myself, I said to her, "I've seen only
one other woman who could evoke the masculine with equal skill, and that was
Balasaraswati."
Renee Renouf, UK Ballet
"...Aoki's remarkable talents as a performer and storyteller - talents which
include an impressive synthesis of modern and traditional Japanese and American
theatrical techniques of dance, mime, movement, song and voice placement..."
Hollywood Drama-Logue
Love and Passion
(Duet Mark and Brenda)
The haunting eloquence of Brenda Wong
Aoki’s Ghost stories, masterfully performed in concert with Asian Jazz pioneer
Mark
Izu
“In the five plus decades I have watched dance theatre, such
versatility is rare. Such power and restraint are also seldom seen in these
decades of lengthy self- indulgence. Yoko Tahara, familiar with the Japanese
Ghost tradition, remarked,
“It was a tour de force.” For myself, I said to her, “I’ve seen
only one other woman who could evoke the masculine with equal skill, and that
was Balasaraswati.” -Renee Renouf, UK Ballet
STORIES*:
Black Hair – A Good Wife, A Good Heart, A Greedy Man
Soul of the Great Bell – An Evil Emperor Gets His Just Reward
Dancing in Califor nia – Last Dance Of A Ballerina Inside A WWII
Internment Camp
The Bell of Dojoji – Sweet Girl Transforms Into A Brilliant Serpent
Mermaid Meat – a Fisherman a Mermaid and the Secret to Immortality
·
Stories subject to change
Watch Youtube
trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_Xm6qL8bqBU
90 minutes
Tales
from the Pacific Rim (Duet Mark and Brenda)
Award winning tales from the Asia and the Pacific Rim for the whole family
∞ Twilight Crane - traditional Japanese tale of Crane
Maiden
∞ Monkey Defeats Death - Chinese Tale of the Monkey
King
∞ Auntie Anna - Hawaiian Auntie talks story
∞ Why Some People are Left Handed - Hmong story about
the Big Black Bird
∞ The Mirror - Korean tale
∞ Grandpa - California tale of Chinese Immigrant
***Brenda can mix and match stories and create an evening especially for your
audience
MU (World
Premiere December 2012)
Mu is envisoned as
multi-disciplinary dance theater work for world and contemporary dancers and
musicians. Japanese legend speaks of Mu as the palace of the Dragon King under
the sea, a place of light, wisdom and beauty and all creatures live eternally in
harmony. Mu will integrate Indian, African, Mayan, Okinawan, and Hawaiian
traditional dance with contemporary dancers. This array of dancers and between
three and seven musicians will perform in the style of an elaborate dance drama
that takes place here today in San Francisco and under the sea in the palace of
the Dragon King.
Mu
is being commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Gerbode
Foundation and will premiere on December 21, 2012 the last day of the Mayan
calendar at the Jewish Community Center San Francisco. But as all endings are
beginnings, Mu will be our birthday present to this new cycle - pushing the
planet forward toward health, happiness and harmony. Mu is currently being
booked by California Artists Management.
Legend of Morning
Glory (2-8 artists)
A story from the Kabuki about a poor boy and a samurai's daughter,
separated from the boy, the girl weeps until she goes blind. Wandering the
countryside, she becomes the Morning Glory, an itinerant storyteller famed for
her tale of lost love. Until one day, years later, he returns...
(Available as a quartet or larger jazz/taiko/dance ensemble)
Featuring:
·
Taiko
Drummers of Maze Daiko on thunder drums
·
Tokyo
master shakuhachi artist Christopher Yohmei Blasdel
· Dancer/percussionist KK Aoki Izu
·
Under the
musical direction of Asian jazz pioneer Mark Izu
Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
90 minutes
Watch a
video clip of Morning Glory
"It's always exciting when San Francisco
actor-storyteller-dancer Brenda Wong Aoki presents a new work, blending kyogen
and noh traditions with Western forms and jazz by her no-less eclectic husband,
Mark Izu. Adding to the buzz about the premiere of Aoki's "Morning Glory"
... she first heard the story, while performing with - of all people - folk icon
Pete Seeger."
- Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco
All
We Leave (is a story)
Excerpts and Gleanings from Brenda Wong
Aoki. Musings about life on and off the road, personal
stories and kabuki love legends. These stories have
been presented at the New Victory Theatre on Broadway in
New York City, Graz erzahlt in Austria, Sapporo
University in Japan and many other places around the world. A Hapa-Mestiza Mama
of Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Scots descent, Brenda’s bloodlines are the
inspiration for her work; a blend of traditional Nohgaku movement, contemporary
American life and her own female point of view.
Stories include:
The
Queen’s Garden – Love on the wrong side of the flood control
The
Bell of Dojoji – A woman's passion transforms her into a snake
To
Fa Lia – Random acts of violence and eternal memory
Past
Presenters
New Victory Theatre, NY
Esplanade, Singapore
Hong Kong Cultural Center
Adelaide International Festival, Australia
International House, Tokyo
Dallas Theatre Center
San Diego Repertory
Graz Festival, Austria Duke University
Whitney Museum of Art
Berkeley Symphony Torrance Symphony
Smithsonian Museum, Washington D.C.
Walker Art Center
Vancouver Folk Festival De Young Museum, San Francisco
East West Center, Honolulu
Iowa State University Anchorage Concerts Assoc.University of Texas, Austin
Nat'l Storytelling Festival, Jonesborough TN
Cave Run Storytelling Festival, KY
Kohler Arts Center, WI
Japan America Theatre, Los Angeles
