Marissa Osato's TO PEER THROUGH VEILS

Culture

SCREENING: May 20–31, 2021
Part of Visual Communications' Asian Pacific Virtual Showcase

So, how could I see clearly now, I who must use thick spectacles for near-sightedness, who am trying to peer through three veils, white, yellow, and black?
—Hisaye Yamamoto, “Small Talk.” Los Angeles Tribune, Dec. 28, 1946.

This new site-specific dance film is an internal awakening to the shadows of history on the JACCC Plaza—specifically, the history of WWII-era Bronzeville.

In 1942, Executive Order 9066 forced over 120,000 Japanese Americans into incarceration camps. Nearly 80,000 Black migrants transformed the vacated Little Tokyo into a center for Black business, culture, and jazz. As WWII ended, the hopes for a Black and Japanese American “Little Bronze Tokyo” were never realized. Bronzeville presents a shared experience of structural racism and the potential power of solidarity between Black and Japanese American communities in Los Angeles.

to peer through veils investigates experiences of isolation and invisibility, shedding and assimilation, displacement and reclamation. Reckoning with the echoes of ancestral and societal history, how do we individually and collectively move forward?


Part of OKAGESAMA: Dance Screening Series
A series of three online dance screenings exploring shadows, the body's presence and absence, from JACCC's past, present, and future. Featuring Hirokazu Kosaka, Oguri & Yuval Ron; Isak Immanuel & Marina Fukushima; and a newly commissioned dance by Marissa Osato.

MARCH 1–31
Hirokazu Kosaka, Oguri & Yuval Ron
In Between the Heartbeat (1998)

APRIL 1–30
Isak Immanuel & Marina Fukushima
Festival of Shadows (2019)

RENT & LEARN MORE AT JACCC.ORG/OKAGESAMA.