Saturday, August 13, 2011 | Magnolia San Jose Rep Stage | 12pm
Kabuki Cabaret is dramatic performance blending Japanese & western instruments. It features Brenda Wong Aoki performing her original story Mermaid Meat and original music by Emmy award-winning composer Mark Izu. Brenda and Mark began creating work together in 1979, having both studied with Japanese masters. Historically in Japan, music, dance and drama take place together. Aoki & Izu continue that tradition with this performance, which features San Jose Taiko founder and co-artistic director, P.J. Hirabayashi.
The story was inspired when a pregnant Brenda learned that amniotic fluid, sea salt, blood and tears all had the same chemistry. Says Brenda: “Mermaids connect us to the ocean, the womb of creation, and the source of life. Ancient legend holds that mermaid meat is the secret to eternal youth. In this story a girl feasts on the flesh of a mermaid and suffers the consequences.”
The work of Brenda Wong Aoki has been produced throughout the U.S., Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Australia and Austria. Her awards include three National Endowment Theater Fellowships. The Queen's Garden (re-release 2008) and Tales of the Pacific Rim (1990) won INDIE awards for "Best Spoken Word." Her book/CD Mermaid Meat and Other Japanese Ghost Stories was released in 2008. In 2009, she released Legend of Morning Glory, a kabuki love story and Taiko oratorio.
Mark Izu, a third generation Japanese-American, has fused the traditional music of Asia with African-American improvisation. He plays acoustic bass as well as several traditional Asian instruments. Izu has gained international recognition for developing a new musical genre, Asian American Jazz, and his CD Threading Time received Critic’s Choice as one of the top 10 spiritual jazz releases of 2008. He was artistic director of the Asian American Jazz Festival in SF from 1990-2000.
“... Brenda Wong Aoki presents a new work, blending kyogen and noh with jazz by her no-less eclectic husband, Mark Izu."
—Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
genre: world, Kabuki theater, modern
Brenda Wong Aoki, drama, vocals Mark Izu, bass, multi-reed Japanese
and Chinese instruments Dr. Anthony Brown, percussion Shoko Hikage, Japanese zither Masaru Koga, Japanese end-blown flute, saxophone Janet Kolke, Japanese great drum, percussion P.J. Hirabayashi, Japanese great drum, percussion Moy Eng, vocals
