#neveragainisnow
IKKAI Means Once
Japanese American Citizens League-San Jose commissions Yayoi Kambara to create IKKAI means once: a transplanted pilgrimage, an installation dance project that weaves together modern dance and Japanese American (JA) obon folk dance (bon odori) movement languages and a compelling musical score with taiko drum to guide audiences through a first person narrative that explores the unjust internment of JAs, subsequent struggles for reparations and healing, and current and future solidarities with communities facing the violence of xenophobic policies. The mission of the JACL is to secure and safeguard the civil and human rights of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans and all communities who are affected by injustice and bigotry. Commissioning IKKAI will advance the JACL’s mission as they engage a multigenerational audience through a deeply researched artistic project that demythologizes internment through a personal narrative with performances presented in community-rooted venues.
“The mission of the JACL is to secure and safeguard the civil and human rights of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans and all communities who are affected by injustice and bigotry, through education and political action. The San Jose JACL keeps the stories of unjustified incarceration of the Japanese Americans during WWII through their pilgrimage, both real and virtual, to Manzanar, one of the desolate confinement sites. This experiential reflection proves to be both inspirational and powerful for the participants. The presentation of this story through a commissioned narrative dance performance will educate, and elevate those whose civil liberties are at risk.” —JACL SJ
IKKAI explores the resilience of the Japanese American community, how we heal from generational trauma and find ways to transform the violence enacted upon our forebearers into compassion and strength that can be used to stand alongside others. Even though internment should be a well understood warning about the sins of the past, we have seen how ignorance not only allows these kinds of policies to return in new forms, but use JA incarceration to justify those actions. (We use “incarceration” here to contextualize our histories within the broader spectrum of policies that criminalize communities of color.) Despite these echoes in contemporary policy, we are centering this on personal stories to create a path to transformative empathy. This is a story about loss, fear of the unknown, and what happens when the people around us follow or resist authority.
IKKAI is also a project about seeking out these stories by younger generations of JAs or more recent immigrants. Kambara and her collaborators Miya Sommers and Brian Staufenbiel joined the annual pilgrimage to Manzanar Detention Camp in April 2019 to begin research. The experience of that journey inspired this project’s concepts.
The narrative arc of the performance will be shaped through the pairing of a poetic, first person story, inspired by the work of Janice Mirikitani, and Kambara’s expressive movement palette that draws from modern and folk dance. A ghostly narrator will recount their tale and give audiences an access point into the program, while the dance elements will allow Kambara to unpack the ineffable layers of trauma, resilience, and renewed determination in the face of new attacks on communities around us. Incarceration is an assault on the body and it is the visceral fear of an unknown future. It would be impossible to unpack and convey the impact of incarceration without tapping into bodily knowledge and physical movement. The narrative examines how we contend with the unknown, the gap in our present and the murky future. Kambara finds inspiration in that gap, a vibration that becomes part of the physical language of the work and its oscillation from loud, outspoken movement to the purr of potential energy before action.
The conceptual design of the set—its ability to easily move between the two sites—reflects key project themes of forced dislocation and pilgrimage. Incarceration tore JAs from their neighborhoods, destabilized communities, and irrevocably robbed many families of their homes as they were sent to isolated locales. Entire lives were stripped down to what could be carried to unknown futures in harsh environments. Now each year, community members, many of them young JAs seeking to understand the trauma embedded in their family histories, organize pilgrimages so JA communities and allies—especially those in the Muslim American community—can retrace these forced journeys. Movement and mobility between sites carries with it generational pain, but also the possibility of learning, healing, and building new coalitions.
2019 SJ JACL PIlgrimige to Manzanar
IKKAI Research and Development Collaboration
The artistic team includes: Janice Mirikitani, Poet Laureate of SF and co-founder of Glide, original music of award-winning composer Paul Chihara and spoken word/hip hop artist Colin Ehara, composer Miles Lassi, projection designer David Murakami and sculptural fabric set designer Weston Teruya. This artistic team is almost completely Japanese American aside from co-director and dramaturg Brian Staufenbiel, a longtime collaborator of Yayoi Kambara. The creative process will begin with storyboarding in dialogue with the SJ JACL and our community advisors before moving to the studio.
This project builds upon initial research and an early performance sketch of IKKAI shown January 2018. It deepens it by bringing in additional research, incorporating the narrative, Bon Odori, taiko elements, and building upon even stronger relationships within the Japanese American community. IKKAI simultaneously taps into a deeply personal and socially urgent vein of work that is a significant leap forward in Kambara’s creative practice.
